You can use Turbo Lister and File Exchange to bulk edit/revise many aspects of your eBay listings. The steps involved are (
details follow below):
1. Import your active listings from eBay into Turbo Lister.
2. Export your imported listings from Turbo Lister into a CSV file in File Exchange format.
3. Download a list of your active eBay listings using File Exchange.
4. Use Excel to bring item numbers from the File Exchange download file into the CSV file (see note below).
5. Change the CSV file action column, delete the columns you do not need to change, and change the data in the remaining
columns.
6. Upload the resulting file to eBay using File Exchange.
7. Check the results.
Please note: steps 3 and 4 would not be necessary if Turbo Lister would export the item numbers as well as other listing data.
Please consider going to
http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html to suggest to eBay that they change this. Just click on the "Send us
your suggestion to improve the eBay site" link and suggest to eBay that they revise Turbo Lister to include item numbers in
Turbo Lister export files.
If you need to download Turbo Lister (free), go to the Turbo Lister download page
.
If you have not yet subscribed to File Exchange (also free), see Subscribing to eBay's File Exchange.
Now for more detail:
1. Import your active listings from eBay into Turbo Lister.
A. Start Turbo Lister.
B. Enter your eBay password and press the Enter key or click the OK button (Note: you can click the Save password box to
bypass this step in the future).
C. Click on the Close button in the Turbo Lister Tip dialog box or review the tips if you wish (Note: you can click on the
Show tips at startup box to deselect it and skip this step in the future).
D. From the Turbo Lister menu, select File > Import Items > From eBay Listings...
E. Leave the Active Listings box checked and press the Enter key or click the Import button (note that you can also download
ended listings, either sold or unsold or both, with choices ranging from within the last 24 hours to all). I generally do
not recommend downloading Active and Ended listings simultaneously, because they will end up in the same Turbo Lister
folder and it will be difficult to keep track of their status on eBay. Do not bother clicking on the Show Preview toggle
button.
F. Turbo Lister will take a moment or a few to connect to eBay. Once connected, Turbo Lister will create a new folder in
the Folder List pane called Imported from eBay (if you already have such a folder, it will create a folder called
Imported from eBay_1; if you already have the Imported from eBay_1 folder, it will create a folder called Imported from
eBay_2, and so forth). Turbo Lister will then proceed to import your listings and will display a progress bar dialog box.
When everything has been downloaded, your listings will appear in the Listing pane.
How long the download will take will depend on how many listings you have, the length of your item descriptions and your actual
connection speed - it usually takes about 3-4 minutes on a cable modem connection from start to finish for 200 listings with
description fields of 4,000-5,000 characters each.
2. Export your imported listings from Turbo Lister into a CSV file in File Exchange format.
A. Press Ctrl-A to select/highlight all listings in this folder within the Listing pane. If the entire Listing pane is not
highlighted as a result, right-click anywhere within the Listings pane and click the Select All option.
B. From the Turbo Lister menu, select File > Export Selected Items, then when the resulting dialog box appears, click on the
File Exchange Format (CSV file) radio button if it not already selected.
C. If you want to export all available fields, skip to step 2D. If you want to select which available fields are to be
exported, click on the Show options toggle button in the Export Selected Items dialog box. You will see a checked All
checkbox and a scroll box showing the fields to be exported. You can click to uncheck the All checkbox (this action will
uncheck all field checkboxes), then click the appropriate checkboxes to select the fields you want to export, or you can
leave the All checkbox checked and click the appropriate checkboxes to deselect the fields you do not want to export
(deselecting a field or fields will not uncheck the All checkbox).
D. If you came here from step 2B and did not click the Show Options button, press Enter or click the Export button. If you
came here from step 2C and did click the Show Options button, you will have to click on the Export button. Only the
screen with the opened Export Selected Fields box will be shown here.
E. Navigate to the folder you want to save the exported CSV file in (I use FExchg), enter a file name (I use TLFE for
Turbo Lister File Exchange), leave the csv file format selected, and press Enter or click the Save button. I recommend that
you use one folder for all files used in this process.
F. Turbo Lister will display a progress bar dialog box and eventually report that your listings were exported successfully.
Press Enter or click the Close button.
3. Download a list of your active eBay listings using File Exchange.
See File Exchange Download Instructions.
4. Use Excel to bring item numbers from the File Exchange download file into the CSV file.
This is the tricky part. Steps 3 and 4 would not be necessary if Turbo Lister would export the item numbers as well as other
listing data. Please consider going to
http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html to suggest to eBay that they change this. Just click on the "Send us
your suggestion to improve the eBay site" link and suggest to eBay that they revise Turbo Lister to include item numbers in
Turbo Lister export files.
A. Open Excel if necessary.
B. Open the file that you downloaded from File Exchange, which I had named FEDL.csv.
C. You may want to widen column A so that the item numbers in the ItemID field (column) do not display in exponential
format. Whether you do this or not will not affect your results.
D. Insert a new column A. For instance, move the cursor to anywhere in the ItemID column (column A), press Ctrl-+ (confusing
convention for Ctrl-Plus key combo), select the entire column option and press Enter or click the OK button. Feel free to
use any comparable other method that you are used to.
E. Copy what is now column N (ItemTitle) to column A. For instance, go to column N, right-click on the N column header cell
and select the copy option. Go to column A and right-click on either the A column header cell or cell A1, and select the
paste option. Feel free to use any comparable other method that you are used to.
F. I like to delete the unnecessary columns C-S in the FEDL.csv file. For instance, move the cursor to cell C1, hold down
the Shift key then press Ctrl-End to highlight all cells in these columns, press Ctrl-- (confusing convention for
Ctrl-Minus key combo), select the entire column option and press Enter or click the OK button. Feel free to use any
comparable other method you are used to or even to skip this step - this step is not truly necessary, but old habits die
hard.
G. Sort the worksheet by the listing titles. For instance, move the cursor to any cell in column A. Whether you deleted
the extra columns or not, press Alt, then D, then S, then press Enter or click the OK key. Feel free to use any comparable
other method that you are used to.
H. Open the file you exported from Turbo Lister, which I had named TLFE.csv.
I. Move the cursor to cell B1. Enter the text ItemID into this cell to rename the field (column).
J. Move the cursor to cell B2. This is where you enter an Excel formula that will post the item numbers (ItemIDs) from the
File Exchange download file (FEDL.csv) into the Turbo Lister File Exchange format export file (TLFE.csv).
K. Assuming for the sake of this example that you have 10 listings in the FEDL.csv file, the formula that you enter in cell
B2 of the TLFE.csv file is:
=if(exact(D2,vlookup(D2,FEDL.csv!$A$2:$A$11,1)),vlookup(D2,FEDL.csv!$A$2:$B$11,2),0)
You will not be able to copy this formula from this page, it must be created within Excel while both files are open.
If you know how to enter a formula into a cell that includes a range from another file, you can use that method to
highlight the lookup range in your File Exchange download file to insert it into the formula; if not, change $A$11 to
$A$x and $B$11 to $B$x, where x is the row number of the last line in your File Exchange download file, and change the
name of the file containing the lookup table if you did not name it FEDL.csv.
Isn't it awesome when the item number all but magically displays in cell B2 after you enter this formula into the cell?
This is a very powerful formula that I use frequently to link data from one table to another table, even across files.
This formula tells Excel to compare the value in TLFE.csv cell D2 with the result that it finds when it performs a
VLOOKUP function using the same value from TLFE.csv cell D2 on the FEDL.csv table $A$2:$A$11. If there is an exact match,
Excel then returns the value from the second column of the FEDL.csv lookup table $A$2:$B$11 that corresponds to the
matched value in the first column. If there is no exact match, the formula returns the value 0.
Please note that it is usually important in Excel to use the EXACT function nested around the VLOOKUP function within an
IF function. The Excel VLOOKUP function by itself finds the nearest match in the lookup table to the lookup value. This
might or might not produce the results you need. This IF/EXACT formula guarantees actual matches. If you leave out any
of the absolute position $ signs, you also might get unexpected results. Note also that the lookup table MUST be sorted
on the lookup field, but the other table (in the TLFE.csv file) need not be sorted.
L. Copy the formula in cell B2 to all other rows in column B for which there are listings and convert them to values. For
instance, with the cursor in cell B2, press Ctrl-C, hold down the Shift key while pressing End and then the Down arrow,
release the Shift key, then press Ctrl-V, then Ctrl-C, then Alt, then E, then S, then V, then Enter to convert the
formulas to values. Feel free to use any comparable other method that you are used to.
M. Review column B to see if any formulas evaluated to 0. Research why the formula did not find an exact match for any
listing that returned a 0. If it was because the listing was no longer active because it had sold after the Turbo Lister
download but before the File Exchange download, delete the row in the TLFE.csv file. If it was because the listing
changed to Unsold status after the Turbo Lister download but before the File Exchange download, you could relist the
Unsold listing and type the new item number into column B of the appropriate row in the TLFE.csv file. If it was because
you changed a listing title after the Turbo Lister download but before the File Exchange download, find the appropriate
item number and type it into column B of the appropriate row in the TLFE.csv file and make sure that the TLFE.csv file
contains the correct item title. I can't think of any other possible reason unless there was a problem with the Turbo
Lister import or the File Exchange download.
N. Save the file now with a new name so that you have a starting point to come back to in case you need it. I use the FExchg
folder and name this file TLFES.csv.
5. Change the CSV file action column, delete the columns you do not need to change, and change the data in the remaining
columns.
A. Move the cursor to cell A1, then copy and paste the following into a text editor such as Word or Notepad or FrontPage,
then copy it from the text editor and paste it into cell A1 (pasting directly produces undesirable results), or else
type the following into cell A1:
Action(SiteID=US|Country=US|Currency=USD|Version=403|CC= ISO-8859-1)
B. Move the cursor to cell A2 and type the word Revise and press Enter. Copy this cell to all other cells in column A for
which there is a listing row.
C. Delete all columns for fields that you do not need to change.
D. Make whatever changes you want to make for the field(s) that you want to change. Save the file with a different name for
the upload to eBay in step 6. I name this file Ebaychge.csv.
If you are planning to change shipping/insurance services/costs, see Bulk Edit/Revise Shipping/Insurance Services/Costs for additional information.
If you are planning to edit item descriptions, see
Bulk Edit/Revise Item Descriptions.
If I add additional pages to address any other particular types of revisions, I will come back here to add links to them.
If you are planning to experiment with changing any other data fields, you should download/save the
eBay File Exchange User Guide. The "Complete Data
Field Dictionary" is the most useful part of this guide and is currently found on pages 63-77, but this may change.
Whatever you are trying to do, experiment with a single listing, perhaps even create a dummy test listing to work on, before
you try to revise all or many of your listings using this methodology. Please note that some fields are interrelated, so in
many cases you will need to figure out the interelationships from the Guide or through trial-and-error.
CAUTION: If you try experimenting with item descriptions, be aware that each item description must be one continuous string of
characters without any tab or carriage return characters. If you forget this and submit a file with these characters in an
item description field, File Exchange, you will get very undesirable results.
6. Upload the resulting file to eBay using File Exchange.
See File Exchange Upload Instructions.
7. Check the results.
Review your changed listing(s). If anything did not turn out right, work through the process again and try to figure out what
went wrong. As you become more experienced with the process, troubleshooting will become simpler.
Good luck!