Create & Update Inventory with Spreadsheets

Your inventory is the foundation of your ChannelAdvisor Merchant account. Unlike most other power-seller tools, ChannelAdvisor Merchant is an inventory-based system. This means all events that occur in your account are based upon the items in your inventory. To post an ad, you must to create inventory and assign a schedule, posting template and ad template to that inventory.

Inventory can be created or entered into the ChannelAdvisor Merchant system one of two ways; either in bulk by importing a spreadsheet or created individually through the Merchant web interface. The bulk import process also supports updating inventory items in bulk. Using the spreadsheets is the most efficient way to create and update inventory and for this reason, we suggest you use spreadsheets whenever possible.

You can see your inventory in the All Items view (Inventory > All Items)

To create new inventory in Merchant, you must download the New Inventory spreadsheet, fill in the appropriate information in the spreadsheet, and upload the completed file into Merchant.

To download the New Inventory Spreadsheet, do the following:

1. Go to the All Items view (Inventory > All Items)
2. Click
3. On the left side of the page, use the "click here" link.

4. Right click the download link in the middle of the page and select "Save Target As"

Once the file template has been downloaded, you will need to enter your inventory data into the appropriate fields. Most of the fields can be left blank if you choose but some fields are required. The required fields are marked with a * on the page from which you downloaded the spreadsheet.

For each new item, the following fields are required:

• Inventory Number
• Quantity

If you do not include information for a required column, you will get an error when you attempt to upload the file.

Do not delete any columns from the spreadsheet. Otherwise you will either get an error when you attempt to upload the file or the data for you inventory items will be incorrect.

After you have filled in all the appropriate information, you must save the spreadsheet as a tab delimited text file. You will not be able to upload the file if you leave it as an Excel file.

1. Go to File > Save As
2. From the “Save as type:” dropdown list, choose “Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt)”

3. Click the "Save" button

Once you have saved the spreadsheet, you will need to upload it into Merchant. To do this:

1. Go to the All Items view (Inventory > All Items)
2. Click
3. Click , locate your file, and click the "Save" button.
4. Click

This will begin the upload process. Please be patient. Once you have uploaded the file successfully, the new items and ads may not appear instantly. Your file will be processed in the background, so depending on the current load on the system and the size of the import file; it may take several minutes to an hour or more before the new items are created.

In addition to creating inventory, you can also update your existing inventory in bulk using the Update Existing Inventory Spreadsheet. The process to update your existing inventory with the spreadsheet is nearly identical to that used to create new inventory with the spreadsheet. The primary difference is that the spreadsheet fields differ.

To download the New Inventory Spreadsheet, do the following:

1. Go to the All Items view (Inventory > All Items)
2. Click
3. On the left side of the page, use the "click here" link.

4. Right click the download link in the middle of the page and select "Save Target As"

As before, you will need to enter your inventory data into the appropriate fields. Most of the fields can be left blank except those marked with a *.

For each existing item, the following fields are required:

• Inventory Number

If you are updating the quantity of your items, you will need to specify both the Quantity Update Type and Quantity. If you attempt to update the quantity of your items without specifying a Quantity Update Type, you will receive an error.

There are four valid values for the Quantity Update Type field. These are:

ABSOLUTE sets the current inventory quantity in Merchant for this item to the value of the quantity in the spreadsheet.

RELATIVE adds the value of the quantity uploaded in the spreadsheet to the current inventory quantity in Merchant. Negative numbers are accepted in the upload and will decrement the current inventory quantity.

AVAILABLE takes the quantity uploaded value, subtracts out the quantity contained in any open auctions, and sets the remaining value as the inventory quantity in Merchant.

IN STOCK takes the quantity uploaded, subtracts out any quantity contained in open auctions and items pending checkout, and sets the remaining value as the inventory quantity in Merchant.

The following example demonstrates how your inventory quantities will be affected using the different Quantity Update Types. In this example, you have set the update quantity in the Excel spreadsheet to "5". For that SKU, you have 10 items Available in Merchant, 3 are Open in current auctions and 2 have closed and are awaiting checkout. Therefore, you would have a total of 15 items currently in the system.

After you upload the spreadsheet, the number of available items you will have will be:

If you do not include information for a required column, you will get an error when you attempt to upload the file.

Do not delete any columns from the spreadsheet. Otherwise you will either get an error when you attempt to upload the file or the data for you inventory items will be incorrect.

Again, you must save the spreadsheet as a tab delimited text file. You will not be able to upload the file if you leave it as an Excel file.

To save the spreadsheet as a tab delimited text file in Excel:

1. Go to File > Save As
2. From the “Save as type:” dropdown list, choose “Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt)”

3. Click the "Save" button

Once you have saved the spreadsheet, you will need to upload it into Merchant. To do this:

1. Go to the All Items view (Inventory > All Items)
2. Click
3. Click , locate your file, and click the "Save" button.
4. Click

This will begin the upload process. Please be patient. Once you have uploaded the file successfully, the new items and ads may not appear instantly. Your file will be processed in the background, so depending on the current load on the system and the size of the import file; it may take several minutes to an hour or more before the new items are created.

If you received an error when you attempted to upload the file, the error message should help you determine the reason why the file was not uploaded successfully. However, some common problems are:

If you are unable to determine the cause of the import error, then please forward the first several rows of your import file in an email to MerchantSupport. Our support team will then be able to analyze your file and determine the cause of the problem.