CSV File for Updating Active Listings

Steven Mahler

Good morning,

I am inquiring about the CSV file that we discussed, and you mentioned that it would be fielded last week. Can we please get a status on its upcoming availability?

Forest Smith

I'm also looking forward to this so I can address 800 errors in my listings, many simple typing errors I made of country names. Other errors that I cannot explain include missing catalog numbers that are clearly in the title. Anyway, typing or omission errors mean the country name field and/or catalog number didn't get populated in the BS migration so these listings got categorized in Worldwide Other. I believe HS's search engine relies on country name and catalog number being filled in correctly so buyers are unlikely to find my listings until I fix them.

A CSV file update process will enable me to use the power of Excel to easily fix most errors. It will save time over manually fixing each listing, a rather slow process that I've stopped doing. Many store owners may not realize they have listing errors like these but numerous stores I've visited seem to. Hopefully, over time, everyone can gradually fix their listings if we have a simple process to follow. Then the HS search engine will return cleaner and more comprehensive listings to prospective buyers.

Mark Rosenberg

This is now implemented. From the Members Area > Selling > Listings, you can search/filter for specific items, or just select all of your listings, and then click the "Export" button at the bottom of the page.

You can then make edits to this file, and from the Bulk Lister, upload your file using the new template "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID".

We'll be putting out full details over the next day or two.

Forest Smith

Mark,

Thank you very much. Everyone will appreciate this new update capability. I've downloaded my file and have started correcting my listings. I assume it was okay to delete many of the columns that don't require updating because editing the file will be easier. I stripped my file to:

id
category
name
description
item_specifics_01_country
item_specifics_02_catalog_number
item_specifics_03_stamp_type
item_specifics_04_condition
item_specifics_05_stamp_format

I also eliminated the column related to year and topic as I don't care about those fields but others may want to update those fields depending on what they sell.

My intent is to primarily fix the name, description, country and catalog numbers so the search engine can find my listings. I could correct the stamp_type field which are all blanks except for about 150 I've fixed manually. Since this is an issue for all, I hope you will be able to do a mass update in the near future. I recall that you might even be able to do a mass update on the year field but I won't hold you to that.

I'll be up late tonight starting to tackle this but you have been too so it's no big deal. I really appreciate all your work in modifying HS to be able to do this.

Mark Rosenberg

Thanks!

Just a quick note - I'm not entirely sure that will work - removing specific fields, and only uploading a subset of fields. It may, but we will need to test that use case. Before making mass edits that way, you may want to try one item first. We'll review this in more detail tomorrow however, and before we put out further notes on this new feature.

We're planning to update Stamp Type for all listings within the next few weeks.

Doug Noernberg

I would think it should work, so long as you populate the id field (or the private id field). I upload files with just the private ID and the quantity all the time (to end listings).

As for updating the Stamp Type fields, if I've already set mine, they won't be changed on me, will they?

Phil Atarium

This is excellent!

I just downloaded my full listings, and have found some items that I thought had disappeared in the transition. Basically, in the import process, it looks like a small handful didn't get assigned a country and/or catalog number. Just being able to see all this information in a spreadsheet is extremely helpful! It also helps highlight anomalies really easily, too.

Bottom line, it will be much easier to identify and correct errors now. Thanks very much!

Henry Brooks

Is there somewhere we can go to f ind out how to do this? Do you just download everything, make changes and then upload? Is there anyway that you will end up with double listings? Sorry but it just sounds like there is a possibility to mess up your store.

Ted Tyszka

No, Carol, you will not mess up your listings, as the system uses the item ID number as a reference. When you upload a new file from scratch, there is no HipStart ID number associated with any of your items, so the system creates new listings and assigns ID #s. When you upload a correction file that includes a column with the ID numbers, the system will not create a new listing. It matches up the ID numbers in your file with the ID numbers of your current listings and replaces the information with what is in your new file.

So, to answer your question, yes; you download the file, make any changes you want to any property except the ID #, and upload it again.

Ted

Steven Mahler

Phil, this is what I have been addressing in my various posts. I saw an item on my screen, say JQ3, then queried for JQ1-5, and nothing came up! That meant that the fields that the search engines look into were empty. So if you tried to look for them, they simply would not come up. That is why I was pushing for this solution, so that we all can fix our listings.

The other alternative was to delete and relist everything. I remember when I listed 5000 items this year, it took me about a month to do them all -- I was not willing to have to rescan and relist everything!

It helps all of us to fix our listings. I was looking for USA #1, and came up with over 1000 items. One dealer (whose title should have been okay for the importing process) used "#1" and "#2" in addition to the catalog number (first in the title). I contacted him and mentioned that he should look at and fix his listings, he replied that everything looked okay. The problem here when someone just leaves their items uncorrected, it makes the buyers frustrated because they have to go through all the listings in order to find what they are really looking for.

Henry Brooks

Thanks Ted and Steve - my listings aren't in bad shape - just want to go back over and tweak them a little before I have 10000 plus of them like before SG

Mark Rosenberg

One quick note as long as you use the "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" you will not be able to create duplicate listings. In general, if you have a Private ID per listing, you could use the "Default" template as well - and you still would not create duplicate listings. However, if you do not use the "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" template, and you do not have a Private ID assigned to your listings you could potentially create duplicate listings.

We'll put out some additional details on this later today.

Forest Smith

I spent time correcting issues last night, perhaps prematurely per Mark above but we'll see. Missing country and catalog numbers are now easy to correct, a one-time process that we can focus on. Despite consistent titles in my listings, I'm also seeing less obvious errors that I probably wouldn't have detected without this new process.

I'm seeing errors in the item_specifics_04_condition field. It appears a little random so I suggest everyone interested in fixing their listings to go through that field in your csv file. In the migration, that field likely got populated from an algorithm that examined each title (perhaps description too, I don't know) to extract and fill in that field.

Thousands of titles containing "Mint NH", "MNH" or "Used" all seem to be correctly populated which is good news. However, below are examples from my titles where this field got incorrectly populated with "mint-nh" when it should have been "unused". Had I entered "Unused" in my titles, they probably all would have been fine.

Mint VF H
Mint VF HR
Mint VF DG
Mint VF NG

Manually fixing these is tedious so I'm testing an Excel function to find all "HR", "DG" and "NG" in my title listings and replace the item_specifics_04_condition field with "unused". Excel functions are powerful but can be dangerous if one is not careful. Fixing "H" listings is more challenging since I also use "NH". A search for "H" it will find the "NH" listings and do an incorrect replacement.

So currently buyers filtering on NH listings will likely get other listings they aren't interested in which may decrease their confidence in the search engine. As listings are gradually corrected over coming months, the HS platform should look increasingly better to potential buyers.

Monica De Simone

Only the first line of my description is on the CSV file. I don't see the entire description. Is that the way it is supposed to work? I had wanted to delete old shipping info that is at the bottom of many of my descriptions. Is that possible? Will a bulk editor become available at any time?

Mark Rosenberg

Monica - The entire description is there, but how it displays in your spreadsheet program will depend on your spreadsheet program. If you click on the box with the description for any listing, you should see the full description.

Monica De Simone

Mark
Thank you so much! Yes that works. I'm an oldster and not as technically iiterate as I'd like to be.

Mark Rosenberg

More Details here: https://www.hipstamp.com/forums/discussion/521/export-listings-to-csv-files-bulk-edit-in-csv#latest

Richard Willis

What Happened i just got over 5000+ corrected only had 100 UN to fix and now i have 1000s more that need fixed

Richard Willis

Now its 11500+ in US. that needs fixed

Richard Willis

Just US. All of the 11500+ lost Country name and some of them lost catalog numbers and stamp type

Mark Rosenberg

Richard - Check again in about a half hour.

We were reprocessing some United States items (which have not been manually edited), as we noticed a few patterns amount newer listings which needed to be addressed. For example (and I think it was mentioned here in the forums as well), a couple of sellers had #1 and #2 at the end of all of their listings, as well as items which were being identified as "United States" based on their titles, but which were in other categories (and presumably were not United States stamps). These issues have been addressed, so search results should look significantly better now (particularly for newer bidStart imported items).

This should have been transparent to most members, though as a Seller, you may have temporarily saw "United States" as a country removed and then re-added to select group of your listings.

Catalog Numbers and Stamp Type would not have been affected.

Richard Willis

Thank you Mark, Mostly lots that end in #s at the end are left to fix. Catalog Numbers and Stamp Type are back. Thanks Richard

Forest Smith

Mark, Did you happen to test whether deleting the many fields that didn't need updating will cause an update issue?

Wayne Buza

I just want to add that this ability is awesome to be able to first of all find some of my listings with issues and then bulk edit them. Thanks, Mark for getting this up and going.