Important note: This article describes importing and exporting products with VAT to the Zettle POS in Great Britain. For United States go to PayPal.com help centre for information on importing products.
If you are editing or adding a lot of new product information to Zettle, we recommend importing the changes by uploading an Excel file using the template file. This can be especially useful when transferring information from another system, or when setting up your shop.
To get started, log in to my.zettle.com and navigate to Products. If you have an empty product library:
- Download the template file by clicking on Import, and finding the link to Download the template file.
- Once you’ve downloaded the template file, open it in the preferred software (Excel or Numbers, for example).
- The template file contains a number of columns with headers such as Name, Price & Stock amount.
The default template file without any products
Exporting and editing existing products:
If you have created Products previously, the easiest way to make updates in bulk is to Export your library to a .xlsx file following these steps:
- Navigate to your Products
- Click on Export, the file should automatically start to download in your browser.
- Open up the file in your desired software (Excel or numbers for example).
- Make the appropriate changes following the guidance above under the Section “Adding information to the Excel file”.
- Save the file to your computer.
- Go back to my.zettle.com and click on Import.
- Drag the file to the upload area, or click on “Upload from computer” and click Upload.
- Review the changes, or correct any mistakes if needed (follow the instructions under the section “Review your upload”).
- Press Import if there are no mistakes to fix.
If there are no mistakes on our end or yours, your products will import and result in an updated Product Library!
Good to know:
- VAT rates are applied to products, and must be the same for variants – hence the order of the columns.
- Supported formats are .xls, .xlsx and .csv. Any filename can be used.
- Folders can’t be edited using this sheet. Existing folder assignments are kept as-is after import.
- Please do not add more than one tab in the file or change the tab name.
- We can only accept files with less than 2000 rows. If you want to import more products than this, please upload them in batches. Up to 10.000 products can be imported per day.
- There is no support for uploading images. Already assigned images are not affected when importing a product again.
Adding information to the Excel file
Important note: Please do not remove, rename or reorder the columns or the headers, as this will make the import fail.
Highlighted file identifier that should not be edited.
The template file contains one header row with multiple columns. Use the empty cells below the correct header cell, to add additional information . You may leave the cells blank if you don't wish to add more details to the product.. The only mandatory column is product name but we recommend to add as much information as possible to get the most value out of sales reports and the Zettle app.
Example of template file with product information
Columns explained
- Name: Your product’s name. Can contain both letters and numbers. (Required)
- Custom unit: If your product is sold as individual items, you can leave this column blank. Otherwise, you can enter units like g (grams), m (metres), or hrs (hours) here. Unit names can’t be longer than 4 alphabetical characters.
- VAT: This column contains the VAT setting that is set for your account. Fill in the column with the correct rate, for example 20. Percentage sign ‘%’ should be omitted.
- If you have products with different variants, you can add those directly in the file and import them by filling in the type of variant under Option 1 Name, and then fill in the values for that Option 1 under Option 1 Value. The combination of options and values will result in a list of variants.
Example: If you sell a T-shirt that comes in a few different sizes & colours you would fill in the following information:
- Option 1 Name: Size
- Option 1 Value: Small, Medium, Large (each on a different row)
- Option 2 Name: Colour
- Option 2 Value: Blue, Purple, Green (each on a different row)
You can add up to three options per product and have 100 variants per product in total. Learn more about variants in our Product Library FAQ - Price: The price of the item. Leave it blank if you want to enter the price at checkout, or enter a numerical value.
- Cost price: The price you bought the item for, enter a numerical value.
- Barcode: If you have products with barcodes, you can add the barcode number to this column. Then you can scan the product in the Zettle Go app, enter numerical or alphabetical values.
- SKU: The SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) of the variant. An SKU is the unique ID you assign to an item for inventory tracking purposes. Numerical or alphabetical values.
- In stock: The stock quantity of the item. If you fill in an amount, the inventory tracking for this item will automatically be activated. After you have imported the Excel file you will see the new stock balance in the Inventory tab. Enter a numerical value.
- Category: The option to add a product to a new or existing category, to be able to use filters and get better insights through sales reports. To create a new category, simply add one with a unique name. Note: Text is case-sensitive so make sure you write the category name the same way every time.
- Variant ID: When adding new variants, leave this column blank. The ID is automatically generated and it’s Zettle’s way of knowing if a variant is already in your product library.
- Product ID: When adding new products, leave this column blank. The ID is automatically generated and it’s Zettle’s way of knowing if a product is already in your product library.
Important note: Please do not remove, rename or reorder the columns or the headers, as this will make the import fail. Do not change the Product ID or Variant ID either as we use these details to update existing products in your library, if you have them.
Uploading the file
Once you’ve added all the information to the file, save it in either .xsxl (excel) or .csv (universal) and drag it into the upload area of the modal. You can also click on “Upload from computer” to choose a file from your hard drive.
The file upload may take a few minutes, depending on the size of the file.
Important note: We can only accept 2000 rows in the file, per upload. If you exceed this number of rows in your file, please upload your library in batches per 2000.
Review your upload
Once the loading finishes, you’ll get a preview of the changes we’ve detected in the file. This step may include errors that need correction. In that case, follow these steps:
- Click on “Upload another file”, this will take you back to the previous step.
- Open up your file on your computer and correct the mistakes in the sheet.
- Make sure you are using the correct values for the column – for example, Price can only contain numbers (numerical values).
- Save the file.
- Upload again by either dragging and dropping the file in the modal, or clicking “Upload from computer”.
If there are no errors in the file, or on the server, the file will be uploaded and instead, you will get a preview of the changes in your file.
If everything looks good, click “Import". This may take a few minutes, as we are creating products in your library. If the import is successful, your product library will now be populated with products!