Anyone else experiencing problems using Bulk Lister for Existing Items?

edited September 2016 in Questions 0 LikesVote Down
Whenever I try to use the CSV file using the data in the field "date/time the items was listed", I get the error, data cannot be before (current time). I then deleted the data, and everything uploaded fine with one big exception.

Instead of overwriting the old listings, it carried over the old scans (thank you!), but created duplicate listings. So the time I saved by updating in bulk is now being eaten up by my having to go through all of the listings and delete the old entries. The problem here is when I am trying to update a section(for example air mails) and these old listings did not have a catalog number in the block, therefore I cannot sort and/or search for the old items.

I have now done 3 successful updates, but have spent the better part of two days deleting all the old items.

Comments

  • 11 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • There is a field at the bottom of the Bulk Lister screen that is called Field Mapping Template and it is set at Default but if you use the down arrow to the right you can change that to Default - Update Existing Listings by ID. That way you will not duplicate your listings.
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Wayne, are you saying that you have had success with this, or are you just telling me which option to select? Because I have only used the option "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" and have created duplicate listings every time.
  • Yes, I have used that option multiple times without once creating a duplicate listing.
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Here, I did it again. First, the screenshot of the file upload:
    Capture 1

    Then a snapshot of the Errors report

    Capture
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Now I ran it again by first deleting the date time data. Here is a copy of the new screenshot:

    Capture 2

    As you can see, new item numbers were assigned. Now I have to delete the old items again.....
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Steve - If you use the "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" template, as long as you do not delete the "ID" column from your spreadsheet - you will not create any duplicate listings. If you use the standard "Default" template you would create duplicate listings (unless your items had Private IDs).

    If however you had created duplicate listings - you can end all of those listings all at once in just a few seconds. From the Members Area > Selling > Listings section, on the right hand side you can filter by when you started listing (ie: today), and then you can end all of those items in Bulk (see https://hipecommerce.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/14000045239-how-to-bulk-edit-update-existing-listings for more details).

    When you export your listings, we export all associated fields with your listings - including the Custom Start Time if you had set one when you first created your listings. When you then use the "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" each column you provide will be used to update the listing accordingly. However, if you previously set a Custom Start Time - it would be included in your export. But you wouldn't be able to update the Custom Start Time to a date in the past. If you just deleted that column from your spreadsheet entirely you won't have that issue.

    We'll look into possibly ignoring this field when updating listings as well.
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Mark, the only column that I have deleted is the date started column per your instructions. As far as deleting duplicate listings, the new listings are the ones that I want to keep -- I want to delete the old ones, therefore they are a lot harder to find.

    In addition, I have never setup a custom date/time, I simply used the BS bulk lister and ran it.
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Steve - My guess would be that you may have originally used the "Default" template then instead of the "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" - as that one would not create any duplicates.

    You could just delete the new ones, and then re-upload your file you uploaded before with the "Default - Update Existing Listings by ID" template, which would then update the old listings to look the same as the new listings you created were.

    Let me know if that makes sense!
  • edited September 2016 0 LikesVote Down
    Ah - Actually we do already ignore the Start Time when you're just updating a listing.

    In reviewing your picture above - something doesn't look right. More specifically there are some weird characters before the first column (the Row Number column). If that's happening in the file your're editing as well - the first column is the id column - which is needed to ensure items are updated (and not created/duplicated). So that could explain what is happening (some sort of encoding issue with the file you're editing). What program are you using to edit the CSV file?
  • MS Excel 2000
  • Thanks for the additional information. Apparently there is a bug in MS Excel 2000 and 2003 in that it does not open and save UTF-8 CSV files properly (UTF-8 is the file encoding we use, as most websites do nowadays).

    Can you email us the file you uploaded to support @ hipstamp.com We should be able to work-around this once we have a sample of your file.
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