Importing Product Mappings from a CSV

You may need to import product mappings from a CSV for several reasons:

• Your online SKUs are not an exact match to your stock codes in Tradebox or your accounts package
• You want to take advantage of Tradebox's quantity multiplier feature
• You're using Tradebox to upload stock levels and want to Exclude certain products from the upload, or set a Max or Fixed Quantity for them.
• You already have mappings set up, but want to add more, or update existing ones.

If all of your stock codes are identical to your online SKUs, and you don't wish to use any of the above features, Tradebox will automatically map your products on import and you don't need to do anything further. 

If you are importing a CSV file and you already have mappings set up but want to add more or update your existing ones, you don't need to import a complete file of mappings every time. Only mappings that you want to alter or add need to be included in the file. If Tradebox finds a match on the Marketplace SKU of a mapping, it will update that mapping; if it finds no match, then a new mapping will be created. 

Preparation

Before importing your product mappings, you must have already done two things:

• Imported products from Sage, Xero, your sales channel or from a CSV file.
• Set up the sales channels in Tradebox, including linking them to your accounts package if applicable

CSV File Structure

The Product Mapping import file contains the following fields:

All columns must appear in the file for the import to be successful. However all columns except Marketplace SKU, Tradebox SKU and Accounts SKU* can be left blank.

*Accounts SKU is not mandatory if you are not connecting to an accounts package, or if your stock control method is set to Tradebox, and you are posting financial entries only to your accounts.

Click here to download a template.

What do the fields mean?

Marketplace SKU: This is the SKU of your product as it appears online.

Tradebox SKU: The SKU of the product in Tradebox. If you're using accounts software stock control, it should always be identical to your accounts SKU.

Description: This field is for your reference only, to help identify a product more easily when you're viewing product mappings.

Accounts SKU: The stock code from your accounts package. This should be identical to the Tradebox SKU if using accounts software stock control.

Multiplier: In the multiplier field, you can establish a factor by which a product on an online order can be multiplied. For example, say you sell a pack of 5 whiteboard markers on eBay. This will show as a quantity of 1 on an order, but actually you need 5 whiteboard markers taken out of stock. Setting the quantity multiplier to 5 would achieve this. Additionally, if you are uploading stock levels back to your marketplace, the quantity multiplier can be taken into account on upload. Using the same example, if you have 100 individual whiteboard markers in stock, Tradebox can upload that back to eBay as 20 packs of 5. If using this feature, your prices must be divisible by a whole pence to avoid rounding errors.

Excluded: Setting this will exclude the selected product from being uploaded back to the marketplace.

Max Upload Qty: Tradebox will never upload a quantity higher than the figure set in this column, regardless of how many of that product are actually in stock.

Fixed Upload Qty: Tradebox will always upload the quantity specified in this column for the product, regardless of how many are actually in stock. 

Product Mapping is set at a channel level, so if your products have different stock codes across different websites, or you want to set any of the above fields differently per marketplace, you will need to create a file for each channel. If your mappings will be exactly the same for all channels, you'll only need one file.

Importing Your File

Once you have the file ready, make sure it's closed down. Then, go to Products within Tradebox and select Mappings.

You will be asked to select a sales channel from the drop down list, and then you will see all of the mappings for that channel load:

The screen will likely already be populated with mappings that assume all your SKUs are the same across the board. These will be amended on importing your CSV. To import the file, select the Action menu in the bottom right and choose Import Product Mappings from File. You'll be asked to browse to your file, which you can do using the  icon. Once you've chosen the file, click OK and the import will begin. When it's done, if you have multiple channels that you need to import mappings for, select a different channel from the drop down list and repeat the import process. When completed, simply close the screen.

If you're planning to use Tradebox to upload stock levels back to your marketplaces, there may be some additional steps you need to take. You can find all of those described in our detailed guide.