Bulk editing items in new store

[anarchystreet]

I am new to the forums, and apologize in advance if this has been asked and resolved. I just weren't able to find a post with details.

Just a quick background is that I sell through Shopify and they just had an app that simply pushes all your products to eBay. Great, but not too specific. 

I am friends with excel and know my ways around it, and was able to get an export on file exchange that I cannot upload back.

Seems that file exchange wants one different template for each subcategory.

I sell fashion jewelry, it wants one for necklace, one for bracelets and etc.

Ultimately I can do that, but its going to be very time consuming. 

I was hoping I would run an export, edit and upload. I know I can do that on other marketplaces so I hope this is not asking too much.

What I need to change is the category. 

Once I get my current data on a sheet I can map it easily and within 5 minutes I would be able to upload it back up, only if there's a way.

Thank you in advance folks.

[mypaymentstest]

@anarchystreet - Thank you for posting your concerns on this Community Board thread.

I'm sorry for the confusion in what the File Exchange download/exported file is used for. Generally, a "Active" download file is for reporting purposes only. It's not set up properly to turn around re-upload to create new listings.

As you mentioned. Through File Exchange and our site specifically, specific information is required. Different categories (different subcategories) can have different required Item Specifics. So, we don't have a one file that has all the possible fields that are needed for every category.

For example. Listing in Men's clothing. Subcategories can be Shirts and Shoes. The shoe category could have require Item Specifics such as "US Shoe Size (Men's)", while that doesn't apply to T-shirts that requires just "Size".

What I would recommend is downloading different "Item Specifics by category" file templates for each of your products and combine the file's "Item Specifics" to make a master file. From there, you can fill out the CSV file to be able to list items in similar categories.

I understand this can be time consuming as you stated, but it's needed to be able to list your product in the specific category for proper view by your potential buyer(s).

I hope this provide some insight on the listing process when using File Exchange.

If you need any further assistance, please feel free to respond back to this board post or reach out to the team that assist with File Exchange (phone or email support). Email: turbodata@ebay.com.

Sincerely,

mykal@ebay

eBay Support

[anarchystreet]

Thank you so much for the quick response!

I apologize for not being more specific.

I understand the sample you provided, but I am a little more specific.

I am selling fashion jewelry, and if I was able to use one template for it and simply point out necklace, bracelet, rings and earrings that would be great already.

I understand if I get different templates for fashion jewelry, one for bags, one for sunglasses.

But the category is one, the subs are "different". 😞

[dollybeauty]

I sense that you are speaking of STORE categories.

This is much easier than getting the correct item specifics because you have already done the item specifics. You just want to place your active items in the correct category in your store (from the category "Other"). Let me gather some info. Be right back.

[dollybeauty · Accepted solution]

In looking at your listings it looks as if you need both item specifics and store category setup.

The store category setup is pretty simple. I will deal with that here.

In My eBay, click on Manage store. Now click on Store Categories on the left. Click on All categories at the end of the category list. The page will redisplay with numbers on the right. These are the category numbers you need to use to place items in the correct store category.

Make a copy of the active csv file that you already have. Open the copy in Excel. Delete all columns except the Action column and the ItemID column (and I would keep the Title column for reference. It is hard to work with a file of Item numbers).

Add this column heading - StoreCategory. Copy and paste the category number for your Rings category into the StoreCategory cells next to the items that are rings (this is the reason for keeping the titles).

Do the same for the Necklaces items, Earrings items and any other category that you create in your store.

Once you have set the Store categories for your items, Change the Action heading to just "Action" (no quotes). Note this is only for US members. Other members on other sites will need to specify more than just Action.

Change all cells under Action to all say "Revise" (no quotes).

Now, the most important step! You must change the ItemID and the StoreCategory columns to be number format with no decimal zeros. FileExchange will not accept the Excel default of exponential numbers. They must be whole numbers (integer) with no decimal zeros.

The OP here may know how to do this, but I include this for other members who may read and try this.

Click on the Column Letter above the ItemID, be it B, C or etc. This will highlight the entire column. Now click on the box on the Home ribbon that says General. Select Number in the dropdown box. General will now change to Number and the column will change to whole numbers with 2 decimal zeros (you may have to widen the column to see the entire number). We must get rid of the zeros. Click on the very small icon under the box that now says Number. The icon has zeros with a right arrow. Each click will delete one of the decimal zeros.

Now repeat for the StoreCategory column.

When finished your file will look like this...

Action,ItemID,StoreCategory

Revise,9999999999999,9999999999

...

...

Now you can save the file as a csv file and upload to FileExchange. Note!! Also save this file as an Excel worksheet. We can use this file to add your item specifics in a separate upload file. See next post.

[dollybeauty]

I am sorry, I have used FileExchange for so long that I failed to find out which Active report you have.

There are three active reports that you could have downloaded..

The Standard Active report, the FileExchange Revise price and qty, and the FileExchange Add unique identifiers.

Of these the Standard active report is the most useful for your purpose. The reason for this is that it has the eBay category number in it. If you sort the file on that column, it will place all of your rings together, all of  your bracelets together, etc. That will make the tasks in the previous post easier to perform (you will have to add the Action column as the first column in the spreadsheet).

[dollybeauty]

Now...Item Specifics.

First, why do I need them?

From - https://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/item_specifics.html

The categories you are using do not require many item specifics. But as you can see from the above, they will help send buyers to your store.

When buyers search, and as they narrow their search, they will see the items from the sellers who have used item specifics. Sellers who do not use itm specifics may still be in the search results...page 999? Item specifics will help pull your listings to page 1 and 2. Most buyers do not look beyond page 1 or 2.

[dollybeauty]

What Mykal was suggesting is not difficult. Let's look at your listings as an example. To be short, let's take Rings and Earrings.

Use the FileExchange options to create a template for eBay cat 67681. Download it.

Place this template in a sheet two of the excel file you created in the post above.

 The Item Specific template for Rings (eBay cat number 67681) looks like this...

(I have deleted columns that are not important for this discussion. I also deleted some of the columns that would apply to Rings. I also added an ItemID column since you are "Revise"ing active listings.)

Copy and past all of the item numbers that apply to rings, into Column B of this template. Place Revise in column A of each itemid. Fill out the item specifics (that you want to use) for rings. Delete the info lines.Delete any columns that are empty for all items.

Fix the itemid number as in the previous post, and create an upload csv file for "Rings".

Now you can repeat the above, by creating a template file for Earrings, download it, place it in Sheet 3 and paste the itemid numbers that are earrings, into column B. Now do the same as previously.

You can repeat for Bracelets, Necklaces, etc. Each time "Revise"ing the itemid numbers that correspond to each category.

Please repost for further questions. Will look in later.

[anarchystreet]

Had to take a moment to put my jaw back in place!

Every single step you provided matched perfectly. There was no looking, no hesitation!

The first file went up and 100% accepted.

Like you mentioned above, I do know my ways around excel, but obviously not familiar with the file formatting like adding columns, removing, and the essential which I believe is the addition to the action column. Most likely why my previous attempts failed.

There are no further questions at this time as you answered that just beautifully.

Once again, thank you a bunch!! I will now be working on the item specifics!

Just for reference, I sell on other marketplaces too but their files are a little easier to handle. Like one file for all parent category and subs are just a matter of picking a node, one row for each SKU, and etc.

I use a shopify App called inkFrog to push my shopify listings to eBay, and they use title and descriptions to auto map and find categories and etc. Hence the mess and item specifics lacking. Which is now easily editable thanks to you!

[dollybeauty]

Glad I could help! Thank you for replying, to let me know that this info helped you!