Can I update my inventory from a CSV file?
Yes, you can. WP-Lister for eBay currently supports these CSV import plugins:
http://www.woothemes.com/products/product-csv-import-suite/ (paid)
https://github.com/dgrundel/woo-product-importer (free)
https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/product-csv-importer-exporter/ (free)
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-all-import/ (free)
Updating an existing product from a CSV file will be very much like updating the product manually in WooCommerce: Unlocked listings will be marked as changed while locked listings will have their price and inventory updated instantly, resulting a slower import process.
Please keep in mind that your products should have unique SKUs – for variable products, each variation needs to have a SKU as well.
How to import eBay specific fields like listing title, start price or condition description from CSV?
WP-Lister uses the following custom meta fields to store the information you see in the “eBay options” box on the edit product page:
_ebay_auction_type _ebay_autopay _ebay_bestoffer_enabled _ebay_bo_autoaccept_price _ebay_bo_minimum_price _ebay_buynow_price _ebay_category_1_id _ebay_category_2_id _ebay_condition_description _ebay_condition_id _ebay_epid _ebay_gallery_image_url _ebay_global_shipping _ebay_hide_from_unlisted _ebay_listing_duration _ebay_payment_instructions _ebay_reserve_price _ebay_seller_payment_profile_id _ebay_seller_return_profile_id _ebay_seller_shipping_profile_id _ebay_store_category_1_id _ebay_store_category_2_id _ebay_start_price _ebay_subtitle _ebay_title _ebay_upc _ebay_ean<br>_ebay_isbn<br>_ebay_mpn<br>_ebay_brand
Please refer to the documentation for your CSV import tool of choice for details on how to import custom post meta fields.
For example, if you use the Product CSV Import Suite by WooThemes, according to their documentation you'll have to prefix custom meta fields with "meta:", so to import UPCs from a CSV file you would use the following column header:
meta:_ebay_upc
What about Item Specifics and Shipping Options? Can these be imported from CSV as well?
Unfortunately not. Item specifics and shipping options are not simple meta field containing only a single value. Instead, they are both tabular data with an unknown number of rows, which is why they are stored as serialized arrays in a single meta field. This data looks rather cryptic, like "a:2{i:0;a:3:{s:4...", which is not suitable for being imported from a CSV file (or edited in a spreadsheet app).
Instead of importing item specifics, we recommend importing normal WooCommerce product attributes, which are sent to eBay as item specifics automatically. Shipping options should rather be define in the listing profile, not on the product level.
Exporting Orders
When WP-Lister for eBay creates an order in WooCommerce, it stores the eBay Order ID in a custom meta field called _ebay_order_id.
If you export this column, you'll have the order ID information for each order which will allow you to filter all eBay sales in a spreadsheet application for example.
Exporting Products with the current Listing Status
Generally third party CSV Import/Export plugins will pull data from the wp_posts and wp_postmeta tables. They will not read custom tables. Listing status information is stored in the table wp_ebay_auctions, not in the wp_posts and wp_postmeta tables which makes CSV plugins unable to attain eBay listing statuses.
However there is one CSV plugin which supports selected fields from WP-Lister for eBay. The plugin is "Store Exporter Deluxe" by Visser Labs and can be found here: http://www.visser.com.au/plugins/store-exporter-deluxe/
Out of the box, the "Store Exporter Deluxe" CSV plugin will expose the _ebay_status field. This will allow you to export your products and sort by the _ebay_status field. This can be valuable if you would like to see what products are out of stock on eBay and need more quantity or need to be relisted.
We are currently working on a custom CSV import/export add-on for WP-Lister which will allow you to export your products with all the eBay specific details like listing status and item ID. Contact us if you want to beta test the add-on.