How do I import items from an existing inventory (CSV) file?

A CSV file is a spreadsheet that is used to import your inventory to your Bonanza booth in bulk. This help page will outline steps for building and importing a CSV inventory file to your Bonanza account. 

Watch a short video on how to create a simple CSV file.

How to Import Your CSV File
How to Build a CSV File
Custom Category Mapping
Item Traits
Revising or Removing Previously Imported Items

How to Import Your CSV File

To import your existing CSV (.csv) inventory file, hover over the “Selling” link in the upper left-hand corner of any page and select “Import from inventory file” from the drop-down menu. 

Once you are viewing the "Selling > Import from inventory file" page, scroll down to the "Inventory File Import Settings" box and click the button to "Choose file" or "Browse." Locate the saved CSV (.csv) file on your computer or device, then click the green "Import items" button.

Note that this process can take up to a few hours to complete depending on the number of items
being imported. Since we import items in batches, your booth will be updated with the
new items as we finish each batch.

Requirements for a successful import

1. You must begin your file with a Column Heading that describes what each field
   contains
2. You must include at least these required fields: id, title, price, description,
   category
3. Column headings must be in lower case. No caps. Here is what your required headings should look like: 

   id

   title

   price

   description

   quantity

4. Duplicate titles will not import.
5. Each file must contain less than 50,000 unique listings. If you have more than
   50,000 listings you may create additional files.
6. The inventory file must have its fields separated by a comma, tab, or tilde (~).
   When you are on the inventory file importing page, you tell us how your fields are
   delimited. The default is by comma, since that's the more common format. If your
   file's fields are separated by tab or tilde, select that from the drop-down next to "Fields are separated by" on the import page.
   
7. You must use a .csv file format (CSV-UTF-8 will not work).
8. If you want to advertise your items on Google Shopping, additional fields are required (noted below). 
9. Digital files cannot be uploaded via CSV. Use the New Item Form to add digital files to your booth.

Import errors

The errors we see most tend to be the following:

• the column header is not in English
• the file is missing the required columns of id, title, price, description, category
• if the file contains columns such as "title" and "price," all items must specify a title and price
• every item missing a title and price are considered errors
  • after 10 errors, the importer will give up

How to Build a CSV File

In addition to the five required column headings, there are many more headings that
may be used.

Here is an example of what your CSV file may look like:

Other possible Bonanza Column Headings and the requirements for each:

id (Required): a unique number or string, such as SKU, that identifies only that one item. This number will be displayed on the invoice sent to the buyer. If two items have the same id, the items will be seen as duplicates and will not import.

title (Required) – The title of your item can be up to 80 characters. We recommend following the “Brand, Gender, Product, Color, Size" format. 

price (Required) – Here is where you indicate the price of the item. 

category (Required) – enter the category ID # for your listing. Here is a full list of Category IDs. To locate the category, enter a keyword into the "Search for a Category" field then click "Submit". 

The results will display all categories that match your search term. Locate the category that best fits your item, and to the right is the “Category Id #" and a list of all available traits for that category ID.

You may also list a full category name as it would appear on Bonanza, such as
"Computers/Tablets & Networking >>  Laptops & Netbooks >> Apple Laptops &
Notebooks".

Using the right double angle quotation marks ( >> ) is the proper structure when entering the category name in your CSV file.

description (Required) – Is the description for your item. We recommend submitting 500 to 1000 characters. If you want to use HTML for your item descriptions, make sure the "Import descriptions as text only (no HTML)" box is unchecked in your Inventory File Import Settings 

Learn more about what HTML is acceptable on Bonanza

Learn more about the "What you see is what you get" editor

quantity (Google Shopping Required) - This is quantity of a single item that you have in stock.

image (optional but recommended) - You may upload up to 4 images. Each image URL should be in an individual column. Each image column must have a unique header (e.g: image1, image2, image3, image4).

The end of the URL should be the image file type (e.g: .jpg, .png). There should not be any
text after the image type on the URL. For example, http://www.bonanza.com/images/myimage.jpg

booth_category - If you wish to use custom booth categories, you can use this column header to sort your items into your custom category. Note that this is separate from the main site category. 

shipping type - This is how the domestic (US) shipping is determined. The value of this should be "flat-rate", "calculated" or "free".

• If this column is not present but you include a shipping_price, the assumption is that flat-rate shipping will be used
• If this column is not present and you do not include a shipping_price, the shipping price cannot be determined and buyers will not be able to complete checkout until they submit an offer for your approval so you can add in the shipping cost

shipping_price - The flat-rate price to ship your item within the continental U.S. 

shipping_service - You can specify a shipping service for "free", "flat-rate" or "calculated"
shipping, such as "USPS Priority Mail" or "FedEx 2Day". Specify the name of the service as shown on the New Item Form or Shipping Profile (with or without the parenthetical travel times).

To specify multiple services, use a slash ( / ) character. E.g: "USPS Priority Mail/USPS First Class Mail".

• Free shipping only allows for one service
• Flat-rate shipping applies the specified flat-rate cost to all shipping services

Calculated US Shipping

shipping_lbs – If your shipping type is "calculated," specify the weight of your package
in pounds using whole numbers only.

shipping_oz - If the shipping type is "calculated," specify the weight of your package in
ounces using whole numbers only. For example, if a package weighs 5 lbs, 6 oz, you would enter "6" in this field.

shipping_carrier - If the shipping type is "calculated," specify the carrier in this field. This can be "ups", "usps", or "fedex".

shipping_package - If the shipping type is "calculated," use this field to specify the packaging type. This can be "envelope", "normal", "large", or "very large". 

Worldwide Shipping (non-US)

worldwide_shipping_type - Type of shipping used for buyers located outside of the US. Applicable values are "flat-rate" or "free" for sellers located outside of the US. For US-based sellers shipping to non-US addresses, "calculated" can be used in this field, as well.

worldwide_shipping_price - Price to ship the item to non-US addresses.

worldwide_shipping_carrier - For sellers located in the US that wish to offer "calculated" shipping to worldwide addresses, use this field to specify the shipping carrier. Applicable values are "usps", "ups", or "fedex".

*Calculated shipping is currently not available for sellers whose items ship from outside of the US. If your items ship from outside of the US and you wish to set shipping costs to non-US addresses, you must use "free" or "flat-rate" shipping. 

Custom Category Mapping

If the column headers of your inventory file do not match our standard headers (listed above), you can specify your own column names and map them to the existing Bonanza column headers. Click the link to "Edit mappings" under the "Custom column mappings" header in the Inventory File Import Settings box prior to uploading your file.

Select the Bonanza attribute from the drop-down (such as "title"), then enter the matching column header from your inventory file (such as "name"). To add additional custom mappings, click the "Add another mapping" link and a new row will appear. Once you're finished, save your column mappings to return to the inventory upload page where you can upload your CSV file.

Item Traits

Traits can enhance your product visibility. The idea here is to include as many traits for
your products as possible making it easier for buyers to find your items.

Note that you don't need to have all of the details about your item set as traits because your title and
description will also show attributes - or traits - of the item.

Each category offers different item traits. One of the easiest ways to determine the available traits in any given category is on the New Item Form.  Hover over the “Selling” link in the upper left-hand corner of any page and click on “Add or Edit Item,” then click the button to “Add item”. Scroll down to the “Item category” section and select a Category. Under the category you will see the available item traits and their values for the category you have selected. 

You can also use the category finder to see which traits and values are valid for any given item
category.

Trait Columns

When entering items traits and values on your CSV form, follow this format:

[[Trait:Value]]

The example below contains three traits and their matching values: the Trait  “Condition” with a Value of “New”; the Trait “Brand” with a Value of “Apple”; the Trait “Model” with a Value of “MacBook
Air”.

If you have a lot of items in different categories, then the best way to define your items'
traits is by using the "trait" column as described above.

However, if you are only working with a few categories, then create additional columns
- one for each trait. For example, if you have items that have a "color" trait, you could
create a new column titled "color" and then specify the color values for each of your
item rows.

Note the column heading must match a valid trait name for the category you have chosen, and the trait value you enter must match a valid trait value on Bonanza.

Trait Variations

If you have a single item with multiple variations, such as different colors or sizes, you can list these variations in the trait column.

For example, if you have on red item and one green item, it would look like this:

Price & Quantity

If you want to specify more information about the price and quantity for each variation, enclose that information inside the outer brackets: [[ trait:value][trait:value]]

For example: [[color:red][quantity:3][price:5.50]] [[color:green][quantity:1][price:4.50]]

This would describe a listings where you have three red items priced at $5.50 and one
green item priced at $4.50.

UPCs

Individual UPCs may be included per item.

For example: [[color:red][quantity:3][price:5.50][upc:123456789101]][[color:green][quantity:1][price:4.50][upc:123456789102]]

Note that a maximum of two traits may be specified per item. 

• [[color:red][size:small]] is allowed because it only specifies two traits
• [[color:red][size:small][condition:used]] is not allowed because it includes more than two traits inside the variation brackets

Learn more about Google Shopping attributes.
Learn more about item traits.

Revising or Removing Previously Imported Items

Only items that were originally imported to Bonanza via a CSV file can be updated using a CSV file or the CSV importer settings. There are two ways to update items via CSV.

Update listings using your CSV file

To update your listings using a CSV file, add a "force_update" column header and set the value to "TRUE". Note that the "id" used in your revised file must match the id used in the file you originally uploaded to Bonanza.

For example:

Original file

 Revised file

In the above example, note the following:

• The "id" column matches the id used in the originally imported file
• The "quantity" has been updated from 1 to 3
• The "price" has been updated to from 1500 to 1800
• The "force_update" column is set to "TRUE"

Update listings using the CSV importer settings

An alternative option to adding a "force_update" column to your CSV file is to visit your "Selling > Import from inventory file" page and select the “Revise previously imported items” box located on the Inventory File Import Settings, then reimport your file. Selecting this option will update any previously imported items as long as the id matches the id used on the originally imported item. Note that this option will take longer to import.

Removing unavailable items from your booth

To remove items from your booth that are no longer available, delete the items from your file and check the “Remove non imported items” box in Inventory File Import Settings, then run another import. This will remove all previously imported items that are not present on the CSV file from your Bonanza booth.

CSV files can seem overwhelming if you have not worked with them before. If you have trouble
with your file, we recommend adding 3 items (or something small) and submitting the file. That way
you can make quick changes until you get the right formula, then apply those changes to the
rest of your file. 

If you should need additional assistance, our award-winning support team will be glad to answer any questions or concerns you may have. Please contact them at support@bonanza.com.