How do I import from a supplier?

[BillM]

Basically setting this up is a 5 step process:

1. If you dont have any categories set up yet, you should do that now in Catalog->Categories. There are already special categories for guns and ammo. Don’t delete these. You can rename them. If you don't want to sell products in one of these categories (for example, ammo) then just disable those categories. The system looks for these special categories and if they are not present, the imports may not run or run properly. These categories should be named accordingly so they should be easy to locate, but you can be sure by clicking the blue edit button and checking the value for the category’s Designation setting. You can disable several categories at once by selecting each one using the checkbox on the left of the list, and then using the With Selected menu, choose Disable for status and clicking the green arrow button
   
2. If you haven't already done so, go to the Vendors->Suppliers link and create a record for the supplier you wish to import from.
   
3. Then go to Vendors->API settings, cilck to edit the vendor API you wish to import from, and choose the supplier you just created for Linked Supplier. Then enter your data import credentials. You will need to contact your supplier and tell them you want these. These are almost always different than your website credentials.
   
4. Go to Vendors->Data Import and set the settings you want for your supplier by clicking the pencil button. You also choose the supplier you just created for Linked Supplier there as well. Once you have saved these you can click the black Play button on the import list to run a manual import. Imports are scheduled to run periodically throughout the day but you can run a manual import any time. When doing a manual import, the option to Skip Download should only be used if an import has previously been ran, otherwise there will be no previously downloaded file to use yet.
   
5. Once an import has been ran, if the supplier supports it, you can go back to the import screen for the supplier and set up your category maps. This basically tells the system to move any product coming in with the selected supplier's category to your chosen category. If there are supplier categories you don’t want to sell just leave them as-is and they will not show up in your store. They automatically get placed into "bucket" categories for holding. These categories are disabled by default but you need to leave the products in there, otherwise they will get re-imported on the next run. More info on bucket categories is at the top of the import screen as well as some specific info on each supplier.