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This article applies to selling in: United Arab Emirates

Upload inventory using the Inventory Loader

Inventory Loader features

To download the Inventory Loader, click here.

The Inventory Loader lets you do the following:

Upload thousands of listings in a single file for matching against existing product pages on Amazon
Keep your listings up-to-date by modifying existing products
Add new inventory
Delete or "zero" inventory quantities for unavailable products
Purge and replace all listings

To use the page matching features of Inventory Loader, you must provide a product identifier and specific information about your offer. You can use a SKU and selected listing data when modifying existing listings.

Because Inventory Loader cannot be used to create new product detail pages, you do not need to provide detailed product data. A single Inventory Loader file can be used to upload or modify listings in multiple product categories at the same time.

The Inventory Loader File Template

To create an Inventory Loader file, you must first download the Inventory Loader File Template to your hard drive. The template will open as a Microsoft Excel file and contains a preformatted worksheet where you provide your product data. The file includes additional worksheets to help you complete the template. You can also enable optional file macros to automate some of the steps for creating and uploading your file.

There are four basic steps to using the Inventory Loader File template:

Download the Inventory Loader File template from the templates table on the Inventory File Templates page.
On the InventoryLoaderTemplate tab, enter a SKU, product identifier, and listing data for the items you want to offer for sale. You can manually enter listing details one-by-one, or if you have macros enabled, you can import an existing file containing your listing information using the Import File macro.
Check the information you entered for errors. If you have macros enabled, you can automate this process by clicking the Validate button from the file menu. The macro checks data completeness and greatly reduces upload failures due to input errors.
Use the Upload File macro from the file menu and enter your selling account e-mail and password.

Note: If you don't have macros enabled, save the file in text (.txt) format and upload it through the Upload Products & Inventory tool.

Inventory Loader File Tabs

When you open the template, you will see several tabs along the bottom of the workbook:

Tab Name	Description
Instructions	An overview of how to use the product template.
Data Definitions	A detailed review of each field in the inventory file, including label name, definition, use case, accepted values, and an example. Yellow rows indicate required information. To have your product upload properly, you must complete all required fields. Orange rows indicate desired information. Desired columns give customers the basic information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. It is highly recommended that you fill in all desired cells. Not doing so may result in poor product descriptions, and/or make your product hard to find. For example, a product can exist in the catalog, but cannot be offered for sale without a price or quantity, in which case the product would not surface on the website. White rows indicate optional information. Optional information may be useful, but not critical, when offering a product for sale. We encourage you to fill out all optional cells that apply to your products.
Template	This is the actual worksheet in which you enter your product data using the specifications listed in the Data Definitions tab. This worksheet contains a row to help Amazon know which template you are using and another row with column headings (label names) representing each of the fields in your inventory file. It has color-coded column headers to indicate whether the field is required (yellow), desired (orange), or optional (white).

Tab Name

Description

Instructions

An overview of how to use the product template.

Data Definitions

A detailed review of each field in the inventory file, including label name, definition, use case, accepted values, and an example.

Yellow rows indicate required information. To have your product upload properly, you must complete all required fields.

Orange rows indicate desired information. Desired columns give customers the basic information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. It is highly recommended that you fill in all desired cells. Not doing so may result in poor product descriptions, and/or make your product hard to find.

For example, a product can exist in the catalog, but cannot be offered for sale without a price or quantity, in which case the product would not surface on the website.

White rows indicate optional information. Optional information may be useful, but not critical, when offering a product for sale. We encourage you to fill out all optional cells that apply to your products.

Template

This is the actual worksheet in which you enter your product data using the specifications listed in the Data Definitions tab. This worksheet contains a row to help Amazon know which template you are using and another row with column headings (label names) representing each of the fields in your inventory file. It has color-coded column headers to indicate whether the field is required (yellow), desired (orange), or optional (white).

Inventory Loader File Macros

On the Add-Ins menu in the toolbar at the top of the template, you will find four macros: Validate, Upload File, Import File, and Update Template. With these macros, you can validate your data and learn how to correct any errors, as well as automate some of the tasks in populating and uploading your file. These macros are designed to simplify your experience and are highly recommended.

See Using Template Macros for detailed information about how to use each macro.

Note: All column headings must appear exactly as shown, in lower-case letters and with no spaces or quotation marks. Make sure that dashes appear in any multi-word column heading names. We recommend that you use the pre-built template, but you may construct your own file and insert the correct column headings.

Required Inventory Loader Fields

If a value is not included in the field below, your listing will not go live on the Amazon website. Under certain circumstances, values are also required in other fields. (See details in the Desired Inventory Loader Fields section below.)

sku: A SKU is a "stock-keeping unit" used to track inventory. Each SKU you create must be unique to an individual item in your current template and existing listings. A SKU can be any alpha-numeric string. Avoid using symbols or spaces in your SKU.

Desired Inventory Loader Fields

The data you enter for these desired fields gives customers the basic information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. We highly recommend that you fill in all desired fields. Not providing data in desired fields can result in poor product descriptions and make your product hard to find. Note that if a product exists in the catalog but does not have a price or quantity, customers cannot buy it.

product-id

Each product sold on Amazon also includes an industry standard product identifier. This field is required for product matching when creating new listings.

The following are recognized by Amazon as product IDs:

ISBN: International Standard Book Number. A unique number assigned to each book published in the world. It can usually be found on the back cover of a book next to the bar code, following the identifier "ISBN." It can also be found in the inside page along with the copyright notice.
UPC: Universal Product Code. A number used to identify items sold in the United States. (Books are also typically assigned a UPC, but the ISBN is more commonly used.) The UPC can be found under the bar code that appears on the product label.
ASIN: Amazon Standard Identification Number. A number uniquely assigned to each product sold on Amazon. Our system will recognize any product by its assigned ASIN, regardless of whether the product has an assigned ISBN or UPC.
EAN: European Article Number. An identifier assigned for products sold in Europe. EANs are used in Europe in the same way UPCs are used in the U.S.

product-id-type

The product-id-type is a numerical entry that indicates if the product-id is an ASIN, ISBN, UPC, or EAN. This is a required field if product-id is provided. The options include:

1 = ASIN
2 = ISBN
3 = UPC
4 = EAN

item-condition

This is a numeric entry that indicates the condition of the item. This field is required for creating a new listing.

Note: Not all conditions are available for all categories. For more information about what conditions you may use in your product category, see Condition Guidelines.

Condition types:

1 = Used; Like New
2 = Used; Very Good
3 = Used; Good
4 = Used; Acceptable
5 = Collectible; Like New
6 = Collectible; Very Good
7 = Collectible; Good
8 = Collectible; Acceptable
9 = Not used
10 = Refurbished
11 = New

price

The price per item, in Canadian dollars. Do not enter the "$" symbol. The price has to be greater than zero (0.00). This is a required field if product-id is provided and you are creating new listings. You must provide a price to make the item available for purchase on Amazon.ca.

quantity

You must enter a quantity when adding a new SKU. You can set the quantity anywhere between 1 and 1000. This is a required field for seller-fulfilled items if product-id is provided, and to make the item available for purchase on the website. Items must be in-stock and on-hand at the time a purchase is made.

Note: For Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) items, do not enter a quantity. Instead, provide a fulfillment-center-id in the last column of the template. See Optional Inventory Loader Fields below.

item-note

Use this field to describe any differences your item has from the new item sold by Amazon (for example, if your hardcover book is missing the dust-jacket). This field is limited to 1000 characters for all Used, New, Collectible, and Refurbished items.

will-ship-internationally

A code that indicates the countries to which you are willing to ship:

If you do not enter an option, the general setting you chose when you signed up to sell will be used as the default.

Optional Inventory Loader Fields

add-delete

Options include:

a: Add new items
d: Delete items (remove all inventory from sale)
x: Delete offer and item data, including the SKU.

To remove offers from Amazon without deleting the SKU, use 'd' or set your inventory quantity to '0' (zero).

If you do not populate the add-delete field, our system will use these defaults:

For new SKUs: Add a listing
For existing SKUs: Modify listing data

minimum-seller-allowed-price

This optional field helps Amazon identify potential pricing errors with your listings. To use this service, enter your minimum allowable price for this product. If you attempt to set your price for the product below your minimum allowable price, your offer will become inactive and you will be notified via email. You can always change your minimum allowable price by modifying the value in this field and uploading the updated file to Amazon.

Note: To remove the minimum price value for an item, enter the value "delete" in this field. Do not enter '0' or other numeric values. If you include this field but do not provide a value for an item, no change will be made to your existing minimum price value.

maximum-seller-allowed-price

This optional field helps Amazon identify potential pricing errors with your listings. To use this service, enter your maximum allowable price for this product. If you attempt to set your price for the product above your maximum allowable price, your offer will become inactive and you will be notified via email. You can always change your maximum allowable price by modifying the value in this field and uploading the updated file to Amazon.

Note: To remove the maximum price value for an item, enter the value "delete" in this field. Do not enter '0' or other numeric values. If you include this field but do not provide a value for an item, no change will be made to your existing maximum price value.

fulfillment-center-id

This field is only required if you use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). If you don't use FBA, leave this column blank.

leadtime-to-ship

The time, in days, between when you receive an order and when you can ship the item. The default leadtime-to-ship is 1 to 2 business days.

Use this field if your leadtime-to-ship is greater than two business days.
Do not enter more than one value.
Use whole values only.
Do not specify a range of days or use the word "days" at the end.

Note: Do not use this field for Books, Music, Video, or DVD (BMVD) products. Sellers are expected to ship all BMVD orders within two business days of the date the order notification is made available by Amazon.

product-tax-code

Use the Product Tax Code only if you are sure that your account is tax-enabled in Seller Central and you have Amazon tax codes for all your products. If no entry is provided, the default is "A_GEN_NOTAX."