As well as downloading orders, Tradebox One is able to upload stock levels back to your marketplace from either your accounts package or from Tradebox's own stock control module. 
For Amazon, Bigcommerce, eBay, ekmPowershop, Magento 1, Magento2, Shopify API and Woocommerce API channels, this is done via API directly to the marketplace.

Amazon FBA channels have no stock upload routine.

All other channel types import via CSV and cannot directly upload stock levels back to the site. However Tradebox can produce a CSV containing the online SKU and stock quantity and publish this to a specified folder on your PC or upload it to an FTP, thereby achieving the same goal, so long as your webstore or marketplace can import stock levels from CSV. If your channel type is not in the above list, see also our guide to the CSV stock upload file.

The rest of the settings described below apply to both CSV and direct uploads.

Please note that for stock uploads to work correctly, your SKU for each product must be unique and SKUs cannot be blank.

There are 6 steps to getting Tradebox ready to upload stock levels:

1. Check your stock control method and enable upload

2. Import Products

3. Product Mapping

4. Import Product IDs

5. Check your channel upload settings

6. Activate Upload

Preparation for Uploading

Choosing your Stock Control Method and Enabling Uploads

As part of the initial set up wizard in Tradebox, you would have specified a stock control method. To check this after set up, go to Configuration > Stock Control.

Stock uploads are only possible if you have your stock control set to either Accounts Software or Tradebox. If you're set to Accounts Software, Tradebox will take the quantities from your linked accounts package. If you're set to Tradebox, Tradebox will use it's own internal stock levels for the upload.

Note - if you have chosen to use Global Product Mapping, stock uploads will be automatically disabled. Stock uploads require information to be held at a channel level, which is not possible when Global Product Mapping is turned on.

To turn stock uploads on, you will need to tick the box for Enable Stock Quantity Upload in the stock control options.

There are three different types of stock upload possible, controlled by the Stock Quantity Upload Type option. These are as follows:

• Automatic - Tradebox will perform the stock upload on every service cycle automatically. If you're using Sage stock control, for best performance you should have Tradebox set to update your invoices to the ledgers, or allocate stock to your sales orders as otherwise stock will not be adjusted until you've performed these functions manually in Sage. 
• Manual - You are in full control of the stock uploads, which will only take place when you select the Upload Stock Levels button in the Products section of the program
• Manual with Draft Quantities - The stock upload is still activated manually via the Upload Stock Levels button in the Products section of the program, but prior to uploading the stock levels it will display a list of the SKUs and quantities that will be uploaded for you to accept or cancel.

There are a further two options that can be set on this screen.

Maximum Upload Quantity: This allows you to set a global maximum upload quantity for all your products. For example, if this was set to 100, Tradebox would never upload a stock level greater than 100 for any product, regardless of the actual amount in stock.

Apply Quantity Multiplier to Upload: The Quantity Multiplier is a feature that allows Tradebox to deal with products which may be held in Tradebox or your accounts package as single items, but which appear on your sites as packs. When this is selected, if you had a product which you sold as a pack of 5 on eBay, but which was stored as a single item in Sage and had a stock level of 100, Tradebox would divide the 100 by 5 to give you an available stock quantity of 20 on eBay. This only works if you have the Posting Multiplier field filled out in the Product Mapping for that specific product.

Importing Products 

If you haven't done so already, you will need to get your products and product mapping in place before Tradebox can upload stock levels. If you're using stock control products only need to exist in Tradebox; if you're using Accounts Software stock control they should also exist in your accounts package.

If using Tradebox stock control, you can use one of three methods to import your products:

• From a CSV
• The Sales Channel (if available)
• Sage Accounts
• Xero

If you are using Accounts Software stock control, you can only import product records from your chosen accounts package.

Product Mapping

If your stock codes on your website don't match the codes in Tradebox/your Accounts Software, then you will need to import the product mapping prior to starting to upload, as any unmapped or incorrectly mapped products will fail to upload. Product Mapping can be imported from a CSV file.

If all of your stock codes on your websites match the codes in Tradebox/your Accounts Software, then products will be automatically mapped when you import them. However product mapping also covers quantity multipliers, fixed quantity uploads, max quantity uploads and whether any products are excluded from upload, so you may still need to import it if you want to use these features, which are covered in more detail in our Product Mapping guide. 

Product IDs

This step is only applicable to users who are uploading stock to eBay, Bigcommerce (API), Shopify, and Woocommerce. 

These four sites all require Tradebox to upload an additional piece of information along with the SKU and stock quantity, which is the product ID. For Tradebox to upload these IDs, it must first download them from your site to store on the product record. This download must be performed any time you add new products to these sites. 

To do this, go to Products in Tradebox and select Actions, then choose Import Products from the drop down list.

You'll be presented with the above box. Choose the relevant channel from the Source drop down list. Update Existing Records should be ticked. Click OK, and Tradebox will begin the process of downloading product IDs from your sites. This will need to be repeated whenever new products are added to the site.

Check Settings Per Channel

There are also specific settings for uploads that can be set on a channel by channel basis. To access these, double click on any channel and you'll see a section called Uploads on the Details page.

Don't Upload Zero Quantities: If this option is set, Tradebox will automatically exclude products with a free stock quantity of 0 from the upload.

Upload Negative Quantities as Zero: By default, Tradebox will ignore any products that have a negative quantity in stock and will not upload them to the site at all, as most sites don't accept negative quantities. If this option is selected, any products which have negative quantities will be uploaded with a zero stock quantity instead.

Upload Quantities for Bundles: Any products which are marked as bundles within Tradebox will be by default excluded from the upload. Selecting this option will include them.

For Sage BOM use Quantity to Make Up: This option is only valid if you're using Sage stock control. If you have any BOM (bill of material) products set up in Sage, Tradebox can calculate the available quantity to make up of any given BOM and upload that to your marketplaces. If not selected, Tradebox will use the free stock figure held within the BOM.

Use 'Out of Stock' Option: This option is only applicable to eBay and allows a listing to be marked as 'out of stock' when a stock level of zero is passed to the listing. If this is not ticked, zero quantities will not be uploaded in order to avoid ending the listing. Before the Out of Stock option can be used in Tradebox, this function needs to be applied in the eBay preferences:

1. My eBay > Site Preferences
2. Under Selling Preferences select Show
3. Tick the Use-Out-Of-Stock option and click on Apply

Activating Upload

Now that everything is in place, all that remains is to activate your upload.  Select Channels from the headings across the top of Tradebox. You will now see that there's an additional column in the channels list for Upload.

Upload must be activated per channel. To do this, click once on the channel in the list to highlight it, and then click the Actions button at the top of the page and choose Turn Upload On from the drop down menu. You can also achieve this by right clicking on the channel and selecting the same option. A green tick will then appear in the upload column as opposed to a red cross. 

Note for Accounts Package users - if you have set Accounts Software as your stock control, only channels with an accounts link set up will upload stock levels, so please ensure your channels are linked to the accounts package prior to switching upload on. You can tell whether this has been done from the channels list - channels that are linked to the accounts will have a tick in the  column.

Depending on the options you've chosen, Tradebox will then begin to upload as soon as it reaches the relevant point in the cycle (if set to automatic uploads) or once you click on the Upload Stock Levels button in the Products module (if set to either manual setting).