Excel file not accepted by Amazon.com

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  • codexxx
    New Member
    • Jun 2007
    • 18

    Excel file not accepted by Amazon.com

    Hi All,

    We have setup an Amazon webstore and we anticipate uploading 10,000+
    products, and therefore to avoid unnecessary manual labor we wish to
    automate as much of the process of adding and managing products as
    possible. The automation process that we have in mind will require some manner of cross scripting.

    We currently have a database of our products and we are able to upload
    products to Amazon with no problems. Our database of products is residing on our server, and we wish to also access the Amazon control panel from our server through our scripting, and then assign the already uploaded products to the Amazon Categories via the Amazon Control
    Panel. These

    Categories are different from what Amazon is using. These will only be
    used


    in our WebStore. Once

    the products have properly been assigned to the categories, then the last
    step is for the script to

    publish the site.



    To assign Products to Categories, there's a template that we should follow

    that is downloadable. See attachment (ProductCategor yMappings.xls). Also,

    for your reference, attached is the same template with sample data

    (ProductCategor yMappings_with_ Data.xls).



    The Product's data is in our database except for Amazon's unique ID which

    they call ASIN. We are already retrieving the product's ASIN after 2-3
    hours

    after uploading the product. This is being retrieved via Amazon's
    Associate

    Web Service (AWS). This will be retrieved by a script on a timely manner
    via



    cron job which will also create the Excel file dynamically (based on the

    attached template) and populate it with the appropriate data.



    Here is the problem:

    - the dynamically created Excel file is not being accepted by Amazon even
    if



    the file can be opened/viewed by OpenOffice.org Calc and Microsoft Office

    Excel. We already tried several ways to create the Excel file but to no

    avail.



    For Amazon to accept it, we opened the dynamically created Excel file in

    Microsoft Office Excel and saved it (Open the file then click Save. Just

    that). Then, we tried to upload it and it worked... May be Microsoft
    Office


    Excel is adding something (which we can't figure out). By the way, we have

    Microsoft Office Excel 2007.



    When that is solved, we should also be able to do the following

    AUTOMATICALLY:

    1. select a WebStore

    2. after selecting a WebStore, submit the dynamically created Excel file
    to

    [Hide Quoted Text]

    the form located in: WebStore Design > Category Management > Step 2 Assign

    Products to Categories > Excel Upload

    3. And, lastly, publish the selected WebStore


    Thanks and Regards
    codexxx
  • code green
    Recognized Expert Top Contributor
    • Mar 2007
    • 1726

    #2
    How are you creating the Excel file.
    What type of file is it? XLS or CSV.
    Excel can open and display many file types

    The underlying construction of XLS is basicaaly a web page while CSV is a text file.

    I don't know what Amazon expect but does it look OK in say Notepad or is there gibberish there?

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