ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
It's probably time someone created one because this question is becoming more popular. Now that eBay has grouped all types of sports cards under the heading "singles" in category 261328, it looks like one template will work for all.
However, your basic information will determine how the template is structured. Are you using "Business Policies" or are you selecting your shipping and return info directly in each listing?
Are any cards graded/certified?
I downloaded a Category template from File Exchange for the "singles" category 261328. About the only column missing was "ConditionDescription".
Next, I looked at one of your existing listings and used it to sell similar.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265174159012
I was happy to find you included a lot of specifics, but what I found was that some of your item specific headings are outdated. On the new listing creation screen, your custom specifics were at the bottom of the option lists with the ability to "remove". I found the correct headings higher in the list and was able to map your specifics into the new names that eBay required and was also able to confirm that the template I downloaded from eBay contained the new headings.
So, with that, I am moving forward with a sample template. I shuffled the columns around in eBay's template to organize them into common groups. I believe eBay organizes them with most-used item specifics first, and that tends to scatter unrelated fields everywhere, making it difficult to know how, or if, some columns should be filled.
I think the best approach would be to create an XLS file with color-coded groupings, but then after the template is filled, a CSV file would need to be exported from Excel. So, still working on it.
Here is a composite of what I think the spreadsheet for category 261328 should look like. I have not tested it because I know nothing about cards, and we may need to work out a few issues before reaching success.
I used your listing info to make some of it look familiar. I grouped similar columns together and color coded many of them to show the groupings. You can rearrange any of the columns except the first Action column.
- The very first green columns (Relationship) are used for variation listings. You can delete those if no variations.
- Then I jumped right into the Item Specifics (they all start with "C:" ) . I color coded some of those groupings as well. An asterisk in the heading means a value is required, but in situations where the subsequent fields depend on the existence of the first (like Graded), if the first is "No", then the dependent fields can be left empty (or can be deleted).
- The PicURL field is for the URLs of your hosted images. That means you need to put them online somewhere and supply the URLs in your spreadsheet (your own website is the easiest way to control the names of your images to improve automation). If you have more than one photo, they go on the same line in a cell and are separated with a vertical pipe-symbol "|" with no extraneous spaces. An alternative to hosting is to put a placeholder image URL there, set your listings to start at a later date, post your listings, and then go into your scheduled listings and manually update the photos, remove the scheduling (no fee) and manually start the listings.
- The description should be added to the spreadsheet cell without any linebreaks. To force the display of linebreaks in your listing, use HTML codes, like <br> for a line break and <br><br> for an empty line between.
- There was a field for "Location" to identify where your item is located. There have been some problems using that field lately, so I substituted "PostalCode" instead, which seems to work.
- Then we get down to the Payment, Shipping, and Returns fields. If you use Business Policies, put your policy names in the three Profile fields at the end and delete all of the other columns associated with Payment/Shipping/Returns. If you don't use Business Policies, then complete the colored groupings and delete the three Profile columns at the end.
I have set the spreadsheet Action to "VerifyAdd" when submitting. That means eBay, without posting the listing, will test all of your fields and report success or failure, or the test might succeed with warnings. I recommend a single listing as a test to see if this spreadsheet will work. There will be a downloadable report that will tell you that status and provide warnings and messages. We can make adjustments as you receive warnings.
If it works, then build a larger list and test again. If that succeeds, you can change "VerifyAdd" to just "Add", and your listings will post to eBay. They'll appear in minutes or sometimes hours.
I have provided the file as a 1MB full XLS spreadsheet download here.
If it arrives "Read Only" for your protection, you may need to right-click-unlock the file.
The sample that you will use is on the first page, eBay's Item Specifics version for that category is on the second page for reference, and eBay's Basic template with instructions is on the third for reference. After adding your own data to the sample page, export that page as CSV.
Here are some caveats.
- The default daily upload limit is an aggregate of 5000 lines of data (and that includes VerifyAdd and is why I recommend smaller test uploads). Tacked to the top of this forum is the request thread for a limit increase. Or contact turbodata@ebay.com with that request using your seller account's registered email.
- If you use Apple, export the CSV file in Windows or DOS format.
- Headers and Data should not contain extra spaces or linebreaks before or after, and data for each cell must be one single line.
- Don't leave any blank lines between your rows, and don't allow stray data to appear in empty rows or columns (including spaces and linebreaks that you can't see).
- If uploading to Seller Hub, remove unused columns (this might get fixed later).
- Do not export as UTF-8 if your spreadsheet tool has that option, as some (probably older ones) will prepend special codes to the front of the file. This may get fixed in Seller Hub at some point, but the File Exchange file reader can not handle a file with those codes.
If you can open in google and export/save a CSV file, then it should work for both you and eBay.
I created a test file with a single card listing and a variation listing and uploaded through Seller Hub into the Singles category. I may have to end them soon. Those listings are:
https://ebay.com/itm/384188810007
https://ebay.com/itm/224475762920
The CSV file can be downloaded here.
Both successfully uploaded without an upload error, although the listing where I included a bad URL does report an image error when I look at the listing.
I then uploaded another batch of two rows, with a typo, where the first listing succeeded and the second failed. When I reran the same batch with the typo corrected, an error notified me that the first listing had already posted, so the second attempt on that first data row failed, while the second listing posted successfully. Top takeway: whereas File Exchange fails the entire batch, Seller Hub admits the good rows of data and fails the bad, so you will definitely need to examine the response file and edit any retries accordingly.
I did not remove any unused columns, so that problem surrounding empty columns has been fixed.
VARIATIONS:
Even though the category is "Singles", that does not mean that every card must be a separate listing. The designation simply differentiates from Sets and Lots and Breaks. Since the site can only display 10K listings at a time, too many identical listings will make everyone disappear in the noise.
What I would like to point out is that if you have multiples of the same card and they are low value "fillers", a multi-quantity listing can be created. If the cards are different enough to warrant a slight change in price or to show flaws differently, a variation listing might be one solution to management. You would just need to add a catalog number ("CustomLabel" in the spreadsheet) to each option in the variation so that the selected card is the one that is delivered.
In my variation test, I included different players. This would be one approach to cards from the same set. They can be priced differently as appropriate. I left the "Player/Athlete" cell and the "Team" cell empty in the master record.
I had wondered what would happen if I failed to populate some of the required fields in the master record and populated them in the variations instead. What I found is that the listing published, the master record "specifics" that were empty did not populate; and the data that was moved down to the variations is nowhere to be found, as expected, because the online listing form allows only price, quantity, photos, sku, and UPC in the variations .
One variation is "popeye sailer". Testing search, I was able to find the specific variation in search, even though the data was not in the master record, by searching "topps popeye sailer". I don't know if this was taken from the variation option "A16 Popeye Sailer" or from the Player field that appears to have gone nowhere, but suspect it came from the variation option.
@firiona_vie_trading_company wrote:Shipscript may be able to provide some technical wizardry that I have not thought of.
Since you will be working with a spreadsheet, you may be able to automate some of the data. For instance, your spreadsheet could create your title from your manufacturer, set, player name, card number, and team. Look into the command CONCATENATE in your spreadsheet tool.
Very few image hosts allow you to select your own image names, but if you find one that does (of if you use your own website), automation can be improved dramatically. Just name the images using your SKU or some combination of item specifics, or use some sequential numbering system, and then have the spreadsheet fill in the URL for you.
@firiona_vie_trading_company wrote:I am curious to test Shipscripts template, I can't download it ...
You may be prevented because it is not hosted on a secure server. If that is the issue and you still can't download the file, I can put it on another server or email it to you.
When you put formulas in a spreadsheet, they remain formulas in the XLS format and convert to data when exported to CSV format. So, if you need to delete any interim formula columns before uploading to eBay, you should export as CSV, reopen the CSV and delete the columns there, make sure your numbers are not exponential format, and then resave.
