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Topic: Selling Topics

How do I import items from an existing inventory (CSV) file?

It's elementary, my dear user: often times you may keep your inventory in a spreadsheet, and spreadsheets can be saved as CSV (comma separated value) files that can be uploaded to Bonanza.

There are six rules you need to follow for your inventory file to be successfully uploaded:

  1. The inventory file must have its fields separated by a comma, tab, or tilde (~). When you are on the inventory file importing page, you tell us how your fields are delimited. The default is by comma, since that's the more common format. If your file's fields are separated by tab or tilde, select that on the import page.
  2. You must begin your file with a header row that describes what each field contains (see example at bottom).
  3. You must include the required fields from the table below: title, price, and description.
  4. Your image URL must start with "http://" and not "https://" otherwise the images will not load.
  5. Duplicate titles will not import.
  6. Header names must be in lower case. No caps.

 

Here are all possible Bonanza column names (read more on defining your own custom column names):

Column Name Data expected Required? Also known as Example data
id A unique number or string to identify your item, so if you upload your file multiple times, items with identical ids will update (rather than re-add).  This identifier will be treated as your item SKU (meaning that it shows up in your Bonanza invoices when the item sells) No sku ITEM001
title The title of your item (up to 80 characters) Yes name Doggie
description Description of your item Yes desc Small, slightly used mutt.
price Price of your item, as an integer (we'll make it into an integer if it's given as a decimal) Yes cost 10.0
images You can have as many images columns as necessary. Each should give a full URL (e.g., http://www.bonanza.com/images/myimage.jpg) to an image for this item. No image1, image2, image, image_link http://www.williambharding.com/images/rand11.jpg
category The numeric category for your item, from first and second level eBay category IDs, listed here. No category 1 1281
booth_category The name of a custom categorysetup within a booth. No No Bridal Gowns
shipping_price The flat rate price to ship your item within the continental U.S. No shipping, shipping_price, shipping & handling 3.50
shipping_type How the domestic (US) shipping is determined. The value of this should be "fixed", "calculated" or "free". If this column is not present, the assumption is that fixed price shipping will be used No   calculated
shipping_lbs If the shipping_type is "calculated," this specifies the weight in pounds of the package. Whole numbers only allowed. Only if shipping type is "calculated"   5
shipping_oz If the shipping_type is "calculated," this specifies the ounces of the package weight after entering it's pounds. For example, if a package weighs 5 lbs, 6 oz, the appropriate value for this field would be "6". No   6
shipping_carrier If the shipping type is "calculated," this specifies the carrier that should be used to compute cost. Applicable values are "ups", "usps", "fedex". Only if shipping type is "calculated"   usps
shipping_package If the shipping type is "calculated," this specifies the relative size of the package. Applicable values are "envelope", "normal", "large", and "very large". Only if shipping type is "calculated"   normal
sku See "id" field. No id ITEMABCD
worldwide_shipping_price Price to ship item worldwide No   15
worldwide_shipping_type Type of worldwide shipping to use. Applicable values are "fixed", "calculated", or "free". If using worldwide_shipping_price, "fixed" will implicitly be assumed. No   calculated
worldwide_shipping_carrier If using "calculated" shipping for worldwide, this specifies the worldwide shipping carrier to use. Possible values are "usps", "ups" and "fedex". No   ups
quantity The number of this item that you possess. No   12
trait A list of item traits given in the form "[[trait name: trait value]]". To determine the available traits for your item, use the category finder, which will let you view the traits for a given category. If you think your category should have a trait that it's missing, you can suggest that to us. Note that item traits will automatically be fed to Google where applicable (i.e., if you use the "UPC" trait, we will automatically tell Google the UPC code for your item, which will give you a better search ranking). No traits [[material: red]] [[condition: new]] [[brand: Gucci]]
force_update By default, if an inventory file is uploaded that has the same ID as an already-processed item, we will ignore the item. However, if the force_update column is set to "true" for an item, then we will refresh all of the information for the item (and add any newly mentioned pictures), so if anything has changed it will be updated. No   true

 

Custom Column Names

Sometimes you have an inventory file that you use for other sites (for example, if you use eBay's TurboLister), and the column names of your inventory file may not match the column names we use, above. No worries. There is a link from the CSV Import page to define your own custom column names. Doing this allows you to map a Bonanza column into a name of your choice.

For example, by default, we expect the "price" column to be named "price". But if your column is called "item_price", you can use the custom column mapping to tell us that the column (aka "attribute") we know as "price" is called "item_price" in your inventory file. After saving your custom mappings, we will know that any data in the "item_price" column should be used as the price of the item.

Example file

Here's an example comma separated file (Excel should create something like this for you):

id,title,description,price,images,shipping_price,category,trait
1,RCA Television,"A television made by the ""RCA company""",65.5,http://www.bonanza.com/path/to/image.jpg,$5.00,3320,[[brand: RCA]] [[condition: New]] [[type: flat-panel]]
2,Puppy dog,"How much is that doggie in the window?  It's $50, sir.",50,http://www.bonanza.com/path/to/image.jpg,$4.50,,
3,Donut,"Yum, donut.",$1 ,http://www.bonanza.com/path/to/image.jpg,,,

Other Users Say

BooksBelow says: January 23, 2009

When you are having problems with the file importer, send small test files with just 3 or 4 items until you have it the way you want. You will get a much quicker response (they usually process right away) and you can try different things quickly.


gemrockshop says: February 02, 2009

HTML import: Double-quotes (") hose up the tab-delimited import. Change them to two single quotes (‘’), and make sure you use ’ and not " in html tags. Import will also balk if tables are sloppy (extra or unclosed elements) – that’s the first thing to check.


Watkins_Rep says: July 15, 2009

Q. A lot of the other sites have a downloadable CVS file with all the headers in place already and some sample products. It would be a lot easier if you guys had that too.
A. Email us at support@bonanzle.com to get your official copy


grampapa2 says: August 30, 2009

Q. What are our options when using the bulk lister for image hosting?
A. We don’t have an FTP site — the way we have been handling our CSV image imports is by grabbing them from a publicly accessible location (e.g., other sites the items may be posted on, such as your own web site?). With this information, our CSV importer can take to the web and fetch your images for you. You would then include those web addresses to those four pictures in your CSV file as the image locations.


avlispub says: September 03, 2009

Q. Where do I go to upload the file?
A. You will find the CSV import link on your “Sell” page.


seraphinabird says: January 06, 2010

Q. With the ‘id’ column, where is that info put in my listing after I import? It’d be nice to have some way to keep track of my Bonanzle listings by sku# [that way when an item is out of stock, I can delete it (or put it on reserve) right away, making for happier buying experience, among so many other reasons why it’d be good to track by sku# (or item#, etc)].

A. “Plus” and “premiere” subscribers to Bonanzle can assign inventory tracking numbers to their inventory file and either view the numbers online in the batch editor under “Print Inventory” or print out a report. You can either add the numbers into your .csv using the format [[Inventory_id:123]] or you can add them in the batch editor. The number does not appear in your listing, although you could enter it at the bottom of your description as text as well as entering it as an attribute (correctly formatted attributes do not appear on the listing page)


teak says: January 21, 2010

Q. Anyway I can import Turbo Lister files to Bonanzle? They are csv files, but won’t transfer over. Any help? Can it be done without restructuring the file?
A. The column headers on your TurboLister file and Bonanzle’s importer are probably incompatible. Bonanzle requires certain header names and doesn’t accept some that are in a Turbo lister file. Try exporting your file from TurboLister as a .cvs file and open in Excel or other spreadsheet program. Remove the columns that don’t apply to Bonanzle, save the new file as a .cvs file and try your import again.


Sumner_Collectibles says: January 24, 2010

Q. I’ve already placed items in my booth using an inventory file upload. After doing so I’ve had to make numerous “adjustments” in each listing for quoted items, squished together words, cropping photos, etc. Now I have another list that I want to upload but I have already activated my booth and would not want the “bad” items to show in the booth with the “good” (edited) items. If I import a new list will the items all appear in my booth or will I have the option to edit them first?
A. The items will not go live until you update your booth.


ers452 says: January 31, 2010

Q. Is there a way to automatically have the weight for products included in the upload file? It would make it much easier instead of editing groups as many of my items are specialty items with different weights.
A. At this time ‘weight’ is not an allowable field on .cvs imports. If you add the item weight or a code at the bottom of each listing description you could search for the weight/code in the batch editor, making the batch edit process go faster.


billsmusic says: April 14, 2010

Q. How do I bulk edit items in my booth? More specifically, how so I remove the OBO option from certain listings?
A. You can make changes in bulk with your batch editor. You will find a link to it on both your “My Bonanzle” page and your “Sell” page.


eternalpeturns says: May 23, 2010

Q. When I upload my product inventory file, almost all of my pictures require cropping. When I had a small number of products, it wasn’t too much of an issue to crop the photos one by one. Now my inventory has over 700 items. Is there a way to handle this more efficiently?

There isn’t a bulk editor for cropping photos, but once done on a listing subsequent imports or inventory updates won’t change the cropping on the listings already on Bonanzle. If it helps the Bonanzle picture “placeholders” are set up to fill a ratio of approximately 1.25:1 with the larger dimension being the horizontal dimension. So, if a photo fits that ratio — 1.25 x1, 2.5 × 2, or 5 × 4, then the photo will completely fill the frame and no cropping will be necessary.


teresbfree says: June 11, 2010

Q. I’ve figured everything out except for the traits in my upload. For experiment, I just tried one trait [[condition: new]], but it didn’t load in with the items. Ultimately, I would like to be able to load in most of the traits in advance. Suggestions?
A. Most of the time if a trait fails to import it it for one of two reasons: improper formatting, or the trait doesn’t exist for the subcategory.
You need to verify that the trait name AND trait value is already assigned to the specific sub-category that you have assigned to the item.


upbest says: June 12, 2010

Q. I already have a csv file from ebay turbo lister, anyone know how to direct import ebay csv file to bonanzle booth?
A. You will have to do some editing to the file so the column headers match Bonanzle’s importer. If there is html in the file you may get some unexpected results, so be sure to check things after you have imported.


brandysue says: March 20, 2011

Q. How do I import with excel? I tried to import a few times and nothing happens. Can someone email me to help?
A. To import a file created in Excel you need to save the file as a csv file or txt file for the importer to be able to read it.


attheboutique says: April 20, 2011

The Above image shows formatting for the condition trait as follows – [[condition: new]], however it should be formatted [[condition:new]], with no space. If you are having issues with your condition trait ‘sticking’, please double check your formatting.


remotewarehouse says: May 05, 2011

Q. Is it possible to upload with CSV importer more than 1 photo for every single product, for example I want to upload 10 products with 5 photos for each product (total 50 photos) and how you do this?

A. Currently you can upload 4 photos per item in your file. Each photo needs to be in a separate column – use the headers image1 image2 image3 image4.


LoveMyKidsTradingCo says: June 16, 2011

Q-Can I bulk update my products with the import function?
A-Yes, on the CSV file you can add the “ID” field to the file and use it to modify existing listings during a new file upload. The system matches on the ID fields and replaces the old listing with the new listing.


QualityfromChina says: July 14, 2011

I just successfully uploaded a bunch, here are some tips for others:
1. Make sure your Excel file has the required headers, otherwise you will have to edit all your products again after you upload them.
2. The required headers are:
id, title, description, price, image, qty, category, shipping_price
3. Save your Excel file as CSV;
4. Upload your file and for “Fields are separated by”, choose Comma.

I originally tried a file of 4,000 products, and received no error message. I waited a day, but it was not imported. Then I reduced the file to 1,000 products, and now it begins importing the products immediately after I upload the file.