You can now FTP your first product file to the FTP site.
Don’t worry – None of your files will be processed yet
Remember that the batch job has not yet been turned on, so you don’t need to worry about it getting processed yet. While the batch job is turned off, any files you FTP to the INBOX folder will be left there and not processed. And you can view the files in your FTP INBOX folder through the YOUR BATCH JOBS screen under the VIEW FTP SITE link. And you will be able to delete any invalid files before you ask us to turn on your batch job to ensure they don’t get processed.
Filter Products on ‘Active for Web’ Checkbox
When exporting products from your ERP/ePos, only export the products that have been made “Active for Web”. See if there is a checkbox in your ERP/ePos for “Active on Web” or something similar and add a filter to your products export so that only products with this checkbox ticked are included in your list of products. If you cant find an appropriate checkbox, then add a custom field to your products table as a TRUE/FALSE checkbox with the title “Active on Web”.
Ensure all products have a unique product code
When exporting the products, you need to give each product a unique product code. This product code will be displayed as a product reference on the website and any sales receipts for purchases made on the website – so it’s important to use the correct unique product code as customers may refer to this in any queries they make about website products or orders.
Start with a small number of ‘Active for Web’ products
For the initial set up and testing of the products export, it is safest to only upload a few products at the start – e.g. a maximum of 10 products. This avoids having to clear invalid products from the database if the initial uploads send up the wrong data (e.g. they use the wrong product codes).
Use the correct filename format
The name of the CSV file needs to be in the following format: products_YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.csv
YYYY is the current year (e.g. 2020), MM the current month (e.g. 06 for June), DD the current day (e.g. 01 for the 1st June), HH for the current hour, MM for the current minutes and SS for the current seconds. This ensures that no 2 files have the same filename.
Also, remember that you need to put leading zeros before certain numbers so that all files have the exact same number of characters in their file names – e.g. June is ‘06’ and not just ‘6’.
Sample CSV File & Be Careful of Double Quotes in your CSV File
Ensure that your columns in the CSV file are surrounded by double quotes and that any double quote within the field is doubled up within the value.
For example, the following is an example CSV file with 3 products with one of them having a double quote in the title:
"ProductCode","Title","PriceEURO"
"A1234","Sample Product","49.99"
"B2345","Sample Product 2","149.00"
"C3456","Sample Product 3 – 6"" pipe","29.00"
Fields to include in your CSV File
The following are the main fields to include in your CSV file. You will find the list of other optional fields to add to this file in the documentation under UPLOADING DATA / CSV FILES.
Field |
Description |
Type |
ProductCode |
Your unique product code |
Text(50) |
Title |
The title of your product. |
Text(100) |
PriceEURO OR PriceSTG OR PriceUSD |
The EURO price of the product. For sterling websites, change the title of the field to PriceSTG. For US dollar websites, change the title of the field to PriceUSD |
Number |
Removing Products from the Website
To remove a product from your website, uncheck the “Active on web” checkbox on your ePos/ERP so that the product is filtered out of the CSV file. The website will automatically deactivate the product and activate it again if you decide to check the “Active on web” checkbox anytime in the future.
NOTE: We never delete products from the website for historical reporting purposes – we just make them inactive so that they don’t appear on the website anymore.
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