Prepping SKUs and getting data ready can be a lot of work, especially when you don't know what attributes a marketplace might require to publish your listings. That is why Zentail created the Listing Prep screen.
This page provides users with the information you need to publish your products and minimize the time to market. You can discover what attributes are required for SKUs in each product type, and what valid values might be for each attribute.
You can access the Listing Prep screen under the new "Listing" section of the top navigation bar or by going to https://app.zentail.com/listing/listing_prep
Page Overview
To use Listing Prep you follow the below steps:
Select the Channel
This is the channel for which you want to prepare your listing data like Target Plus, or Amazon.
Select a Product Type
The product type is the categorization for the listing. It's the level at which a channel defines most of the requirements for publishing a listing.
For channels that have a restriction on what product types you can sell (like Target Plus), your allowed product types will appear at the top, followed by the rest of the product types for that channel.
You can scroll through this dropdown or start typing to search for specific product types.
Prepare Listings
From here you can view all required attributes in a custom QuickEdit page and/or download a csv of valid attributes for the attributes that have restrictions on what is acceptable.
Pro Tip: Click DOWNLOAD VALID VALUES first before clicking on GO TO QUICKEDIT to see all required attributes for the selected Product Type
The QuickEdit view
Selecting GO TO QUICKEDIT will launch a custom QuickEdit view that includes all required attributes for that channel/product type. It also automatically filters for all SKUs that are already categorized into that product type. This way you can view what attributes are blank that must be filled in before you might expect the channel to publish your listing.
For example, once you go to the QuickEdit view for 3d printer filament, you will see every necessary field required for this Category, along with each SKU in your catalog that is a part of this Category. Use this QuickEdit view in conjunction with the valid values sheet to determine what values that specific channel has for each attribute. Then, fill in the blanks!
Want to work in a spreadsheet? Click on the 'Export View' button on QuickEdit to download all of the attributes seen on the QuickEdit View. Once you're done and happy with the data, simply import back into Zentail.
Pro Tip: Set your SKUs to "List" (ie set "Listed" to TRUE) for immediate feedback as early on in the process as you are comfortable.
How to read the valid values sheet
There's a lot of information packed into this sheet! First, if an attribute does not show up on this sheet but is on the QuickEdit view, then that attribute is free text and you can put whatever you want in there. There's no validation on that attribute.
For attributes that do show up on this sheet, you are going to see in order (from top to bottom) the Zentail Attribute, Zentail Attribute Type, [Channel Name] Attribute Override, [Channel Name] Attribute Type, [Channel Name] Attribute Level, and Valid Values.
Zentail Attribute -- This is just the name of the attribute in Zentail, it is the attribute that shows up on the QuickEdit view
Zentail Attribute Type -- Explains whether the field in Zentail is a 'Text' value, 'Select', 'Units', etc.
[Channel Name] Attribute Override -- This is the Channel Specific attribute, formatted so you can enter the override value in. Sometimes, you want a unique value for that specific channel that is different than your data for other channels, in this case, it's helpful to set an override. You can set an override in an upload by using the header here.
Example: I don't want to change the value of the attribute [Import Designation] on Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify, but I want to make it a different value on Target+. Instead, I will use the attribute [Target Plus (Target Plus) Import Description Override] to send a different value only to Target.
[Channel Name] Attribute Type -- Most especially this is useful if the Target attribute is a MultiSelect. This means that you can provide a comma-separated set of values for this attribute and all will be sent to Target.
[Channel Name]Attribute Level -- If the level is "Listing" it means that this attribute must be the same for all the SKUs in a group, if the level is "Variant" it means that this attribute can be different for all the SKUs in a group.
Valid Values -- these are the values (casing is important!) that are valid for that attribute in that product type.
Note: These valid values change per product type and difference channels (Target, Amazon, Walmart) will often add additional valid values so it's always a good idea to download the valid value sheet for each product type at the time you are prepping your products.