Seller Sync is built to read supplier files as they arrive, so you rarely need to clean them up first. That said, files that follow a few basic conventions grade faster and match better.
The ideal layout
One product per row, with a header row on the first line. The columns that matter most:
| Column | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Product name / description | Used to find and confirm the matching Amazon listing. More detail is better: "Clorox Disinfecting Wipes 75ct 6-pack" beats "Wipes". |
| Brand | Strongly improves match quality. If your file has a brand column, keep it. |
| UPC (Universal Product Code) | The single best matching signal. A valid 12-digit UPC usually leads straight to the right listing. |
| Item cost | Required for profitability. Your cost per unit or per case; either works, and we work out which one it is. |
| Units per case | Tells us how many units are in what you're buying, so per-unit profit comes out right. |
Missing one of these? Upload anyway. You'll still get results; just expect more rows to come back as a Maybe or with no match if UPCs or brands are absent. See Wrong, few, or missing matches.
You don't need to rename columns
Column names vary wildly between suppliers ("Cost", "Whsl", "Your Price", "Net Each"), and that's fine. During the Mapping columns stage, Seller Sync recognizes what each column contains regardless of what it's called. You can review and adjust the mapping before grading starts.
Formatting that's handled automatically
- Prices with currency symbols.
$12.50,12.50 USD, and plain12.50all read correctly. - Section header rows. Many price lists group products under category rows like "*** CLEANING SUPPLIES ***". These are detected and skipped, not treated as products.
- Extra columns. Internal SKUs (stock keeping units, your supplier's own item numbers), minimums, notes: anything we don't need is simply ignored.
Things worth fixing before upload
- Merged cells. Merged header or data cells confuse the row structure. Unmerge them and give every column its own header.
- Multiple tabs. Each tab with product rows is read, so a workbook split by category works as sent. Tabs without product rows, like a cover page or notes, are skipped.
- Rows above the header. A logo block or a few lines of contact info above the header row is usually handled, but a clean file with the header on line one is the safest bet.
- Totals or footer rows. A "TOTAL" row at the bottom can be misread as a product. Delete it if it's easy to do.
Format and size
All of this applies to CSV, XLSX, XLS, and TSV files up to 50 MB and 50,000 rows; see Supported file types and limits. PDFs follow the same principles but are rebuilt from the document layout; see PDF price lists.