The Monocle & Moustache

Dear Katie,

I logged into my profile earlier today and saw this button about downloading a CSV file? What’s a CSV file? Are you sure that’s not a typo? I know I drive by a couple of CVS Pharmacies on my way home everyday…What does Tophatter have to do with that? Help!

Thanks for your help!
Lost in Louisville

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Hi Lost,

Don’t get too excited! The CSV file doesn’t have anything to do with pharmacies, and we’re not instituting a Tophatter pharmacy plan! The “Download All of Your Items (CSV)” button is an awesome new tool to help Sellers keep track of the items they’ve scheduled and sold on Tophatter!

To begin with, CSV is an abbreviation for Comma Separated Values. What does that mean? CSV files are “files containing data sets separated by commas, where each new line represents a new database row, and each database row has one or more fields separated by a comma; can be organized into cells by a spreadsheet program or inserted into a database. CSV files are commonly used for transferring data between databases in a simple text-based format.” That means that you can export the file from Tophatter and open it in a database or spreadsheet program like Excel, Google Docs, Quickbooks, or any number of programs.

Now that you know WHAT it is, you may be wondering what to DO with it, right? Here are some quick notes on how you can get the files downloaded and set up for you to work with:

1. In Tophatter, go to the “Sell” menu and select “Manage Your Items”. This will pull up the Items for Sale tab of your profile.

2. Click the button to download the file (featured in the picture above). The button is on the top right, next to the “List a New Item” button.

3. The internet browser you’re using will determine what you do next.

Google Chrome: Once the file has finished downloading, click the icon at the bottom of the screen to open the CSV file. 

Internet Explorer: Choose Open in the “File Download” box that pops up.

Firefox: Click “Open With” and select the name of the program you want to use to open the file. I suggest Microsoft Excel.

Safari: Once the file has finished downloading, click the download arrow in the top right and double-click on the file name to open it.

If you don’t have Microsoft Office or any other spreadsheet program on a Mac, the file will open in File Upload. I suggest opening it in the TextEdit program and saving the file as a CSV file on your computer.

4. In most of the circumstances listed above, the file will open in Microsoft Excel if you have it. For anyone who does not have Excel or some other software on their computer, here is another option for you…Google Docs. If you have a Gmail account, you can utilize Google Docs to crea documents, spreadsheets, presentations & more. To open the CSV file in Google Docs, do the following:

a. If you are in your Google Mail (mail.google.com) account, click on Drive at the top.

b. When you’re in Google Drive, click the Import button (the red icon with the up arrow). Select “Files”.    

c. In the next screen, select the file that you’d like to open (ie. the CSV download from Tophatter) and click “Select.”

d. The Upload Settings window will open next. Select the option to: “Convert documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and drawings to the corresponding Google Docs format.”

e. Click Start Upload.

5. Now that the file is open, you can add filters to the file to check on Customers and see if items have been shipped or not. You can create pivot tables to analyze data. You can graph the data by sale date to see if there’s a day of the week when you sell best.

I hope this quick how-to informs you on how to best access this information! There’s a ton of data from your sales that you can optimize by playing around in these spreadsheets. If you have any questions about how to work with the data, feel free to email me.

Thanks! - Katie

Sources: FileInfo.com