Minimum data requirements when creating and editing products in bulk through spreadsheet

To create or edit multiple products in bulk, we recommend importing products through a spreadsheet.

A similar template is used for creating and updating products, but there are slightly different rules on the data required in the spreadsheet for a successful import.

For each import you run, we recommend only performing a single action, such as either creating products only or updating products only. However, if you decide to do both within the same file, stricter validation requirements are enforced in updating the file.

Creating new products and variants through spreadsheet

Minimum required columns (unpublished)

To create a product through a spreadsheet, these columns must be included in the spreadsheet:

• Ad ID
  Note: This column must be empty when creating products. 
• *Title Description
• *Main Description

Note: All other columns are optional. This will create a product however, the product is not yet ready for sale.

To create a variant and a new product at the same time, at least one of these columns must be included:

• Stocklevel
• Variant External ID
• Barcode
• SKU
• Variant Price
• Variant Sale Price
• Variant Wholesale Price (if enabled for the Marketplace)
• Variant Recommended Retail Price (if enabled for the Marketplace)
• Variant Wholesale Promo Price (if enabled for the Marketplace)
• Variant Shipping Profile Id
• Variant Item Tax Rate

Additional conditional requirement: 

Therapeutic Goods (TGA) (variant only, create & update) - Not enabled for all Marketplaces: If the Enable Therapeutic Goods (TGA) Labelling (Yes/No) field is set to Yes for a variant the column, the Variant TGA Warning column becomes a required column.

Minimum required columns (published)

There are additional requirements when a product is published through a spreadsheet at the same time that it is created. The published products are ready for the Marketplace operator to review and approve. If the operator approves the products, then the products are displayed in the marketplace for sale.

If the Publish Advert (yes/no) column is set to yes, then these columns are required at a minimum when creating products:

Note: To publish a product through a spreadsheet, you must create at least one variant of that product.

• Ad ID
  Note: Please note that this column must be empty when creating new products. 
• Publish Advert (yes/no) with the value yes
• *Title Description
• *Main Description
• *Base Price
• *Category (including Category 2, Category 3, etc. depending on the depth of the category tree for that product)
• *Brand
• Variant Option Name (as many as there are Variant Option Types for the respective category) 
• Variant Option Value (as many as there are Variant Option Types for the respective category) 

Values for Category, Brand, and Variant Option Names and Variant Option Values are validated against the category of the Marketplace, brand, and attribute data. Only valid values are accepted.

Creating new variants for existing products

The minimum required columns to create new variants for existing products are:

• Ad ID 

plus at least one of the following:

• Stocklevel
• Variant External ID
• Barcode
• SKU
• Variant Price
• Variant Sale Price
• Variant Wholesale Price (if enabled for the Marketplace)
• Variant Recommended Retail Price (if enabled for the Marketplace)
• Variant Wholesale Promo Price (if enabled for the Marketplace)
• Variant Shipping Profile Id
• Variant Item Tax Rate
• Variant Option Name & Variant Option value (as many as there are Variant Option Types for the respective category) 

Note: If variants already exist but only new variant information is supplied in the import (for example, the existing variants are not explicitly included in the spreadsheet separately), the first row in the spreadsheet overwrites the details of the first existing variant, the second row overwrites the second existing variant instead of creating new variants.

Updating existing products and variants via spreadsheet

If only a small number of updates to products or variants are required, it is not required to import all the columns of the spreadsheet to make the changes. To update only one variant option type, we recommend that you update only one column value on the spreadsheet while retaining other values. Columns required to update existing products and variants are:

• Ad ID 
• any column(field) that you want to update 

We highly recommend that you always include the Variant ID, Barcode, SKU, or Variant External ID when updating variant level fields so as not to accidentally overwrite data for the wrong variant. 

Updating the published status “Publish advert (yes/no)” for existing products

As detailed in the  Minimum required columns (published) section, there are mandatory data requirements that have to be fulfilled before being able to publish products. These also apply when updating the value for “Publish advert (yes/no)” from “no” to “yes” for existing products.

Even if the relevant columns are not included in the spreadsheet being imported, this information will still be validated and you may receive errors such as “Taxon must be filled in”.  These need to be addressed before you can publish through spreadsheet successfully.