TikTok Shop bulk upload template: turning a supplier spreadsheet into rows that join up as one product

What the TikTok Shop bulk upload template is

A supplier’s spreadsheet for a yoga mat in three colours arrives as three rows with three different names: FENWALD YOGA MAT 6MM PURPLE!! on one, Fenwald yoga mat black on the next. Every row gives the weight as 1.1kg, the size as 183 x 61 x 0.6cm, and a barcode that Excel shows as 5.01235E+12.

The TikTok Shop bulk upload template is the .xlsx file that Seller Center’s Bulk Listing Tool gives you once you choose a category and brands.¹ It needs one row per variant, with the product name and every other shared detail identical on each row, the package weight in grams and its length, width and height in centimetres as bare numbers, and image links that open the picture itself.¹

Where to get it

TikTok’s Bulk Listing Tool page, dated 7 August 2025, gives two ways in: Products, Manage Products, then Bulk action; or Products, Batch Tool, then Bulk publish products. You “Select a category and brand(s), then download the template.”¹ One file can hold many products, up to 5 MB.¹

TikTok’s comparison of its listing tools puts the template with sellers who “don’t have Identifier codes for most products”, and gives its drawback as “Many required fields, like product category and image URL, leading to potential errors and listing failures.”¹⁶ Sellers whose codes are mostly there have a shorter route, the Product Upload Accelerator, which takes five columns and imports only products it can match to a valid identifier code.¹⁶¹⁷

The fields, and what each one takes

The Bulk Listing Tool page marks each field mandatory, optional or conditionally mandatory.¹

The last row changes with the category: those fields “will be conditionally mandatory according to your product category”, and the template’s prompts say which apply.¹

TikTok’s April 2024 product guide adds two working rules: read the Instruction and Example sheets before filling in the Template sheet, and “Do not delete the original rows and columns in the template”.⁵

Above the 30-word floor, TikTok’s pages disagree on description length: the Bulk Listing Tool page recommends going over a character count that the newer guide to adding a product says to stay under.³¹²

One row per variant, and what every row must share

Supplier files put colours in one cell, as Purple/Black/Sage, or on rows with names of their own. The template takes neither. “Each SKU should be placed on a separate row”, so three colours make three rows, and three colours in two sizes make six.¹ Variation 1, read as colour by default, is mandatory once a product has variations; Variation 2 is for a second tier only, and values within one product “have to be different”.¹

Then comes the rule that decides whether those rows become one product: “Except for variation information (variation name and variation image), retail price, quantity, and seller SKU, please ensure that the other product information is exactly the same. Otherwise, we cannot consider those items as different variants of the same product.”¹ TikTok’s April 2024 guide names the columns that must be “totally the same”: category, brand, product name, product description, and the parcel’s weight, length, width and height.⁵

Listing each colour as its own product is no way round it: TikTok treats that as a duplicate listing, keeps one, and “The others may be removed, restricted, or hidden.”⁶ Variants: size and colour covers what counts as a variant.

Where supplier spreadsheets break the template

Names that change from colour to colour. By TikTok’s rule, rows with different names cannot be variants of one product, so the colour moves into Variation 1 and one name goes on every row. TikTok asks for “more than 25 characters (including spaces) and ideally no more than 80 characters”, built from brand, details, use, type and main features.² Promotions such as “x% off”, seller names, and symbols or special characters stay out.³ Writing product titles shows how to build one from the data.

The product’s weight and size, not the parcel’s. 1.1kg is the mat and 183 x 61 x 0.6cm is the mat unrolled, but the template asks for the package, in grams and centimetres, numbers only.¹ TikTok means “the total package weight, which includes the product itself and any additional packaging materials”.² Rolled and boxed, the mat is 1250, then 63, 15 and 15, each in its own cell. Convert pounds and inches first: TikTok’s developer documentation has an error for “imperial units on non-US local products”.¹⁹ Units and dimensions covers converting a whole column.

Barcodes nobody can read. Excel “converts large numbers to scientific notation”, so three different EANs can all show as 5.01235E+12, and on screen you cannot tell whether the supplier sent three codes or one.²⁰ TikTok checks the format, “EAN: 8, 13, 14 digits, numbers only”, and each variation needs its own code.¹⁴ GTIN, EAN, UPC and MPN explained covers getting the digits back.

File names and page links where image links belong. FM-YM6-P.jpg names a file on the supplier’s computer, and a product page is not an image. The template’s image URL “must link directly to the image”, and images uploaded to TikTok’s Media Center come with a link to copy.¹ Each must be at least 800 × 800 pixels.³ A link in the right form can still be dead: of the 12,015 image links on one musical instrument catalogue, 3,566 failed when we fetched them, nearly a third.

The distributor’s name as the brand. Ashby Row Trading Ltd in a Brand column names whoever sold the stock, not the brand on the pack. TikTok’s August 2026 policy update says “the brand field must show the actual brand on the product, packaging, and labelling”, and must not be left blank or set to No Brand for a branded product.⁷ The template marks Brand optional; TikTok’s guide to adding a product marks it “Required for Branded Products”.¹²

One supplier row, before and after

Here is the purple mat’s row as the supplier sent it; the black and sage rows differ only where a variant may.

The description loses “best” and “non slip”. TikTok’s claims guide allows absolute claims such as “best” only when they are “accurate, supportable and clearly scoped”, and asks for evidence behind every performance claim.⁹ The category stays amber because it comes from TikTok’s own tree, and a product in the wrong one is a listing violation.¹³ The brand on the pack was never in the supplier’s file, and each colour’s barcode has to be confirmed against the product. Finding values from the product itself is what product data enrichment means in practice.

Filling and uploading the template, step by step

1. Settle brand authorisation first, in the Qualification Centre, for any brand that requires it; without it a listing “may not be approved or may be removed”.⁷
2. Download the template for the category, selecting every brand the file will carry.¹
3. Give every variant its own row, with the shared details written once and copied exactly.¹
4. Convert every measure to grams and centimetres for the packed parcel, one number per cell.¹²
5. Type barcodes into a column already formatted as Text, because the format “will only affect numbers that are entered after the format is applied”.²⁰
6. Paste a direct link for every image, and open each one before you upload.¹
7. Fill the category’s own fields, such as size chart or material.¹
8. Upload, check the preview of the first product and click Confirm to start import. Then fix whatever the Online Editor highlights and submit from the editor, without uploading again.¹

What happens after the upload

Products that pass the upload still go to review before they are listed.⁵² A product that fails gets an email with the reason and can be corrected and resubmitted; a frozen one, for illegal, harmful or counterfeit goods, cannot.¹⁴ A product deleted for a listing violation must not be uploaded again.¹³

TikTok’s claims guide names four ways a listing goes wrong: it may be removed or suppressed when its information is “incomplete, unverifiable, exaggerated or inconsistent”.⁹ In a bulk upload, that means:

• Incomplete: titles made only of numbers and codes, or no image of the product being sold.¹⁰
• Inconsistent: a title and description that disagree, in TikTok’s example “red shoes” against “blue boots”.¹¹
• Exaggerated: absolute terms without proof, such as “No.1 product, 100% Natural, 100% Organic”.¹²
• Duplicated or miscategorised: one product listed twice, or in a category that does not fit it.¹³

Repeated violations within 180 days can suspend new product uploads for two to seven calendar days.¹³ Edits go back through review, which TikTok aims to finish within 24 hours.¹⁵

When it is not obvious

A product with no barcode. TikTok’s 2023 identifier guide says “For all the UK categories, the product identifier code is optional”; its 2024 product guide says certain categories require it, and others need a valid reason for leaving it out.⁴⁵ Follow what your category’s template asks. A code “should be registered with the GS1 database”, and without one, TikTok’s advice is to ask the manufacturer, or GS1 if you make the product yourself.⁴ A supplier’s stock code is never a barcode.

Sizes that ship in different boxes. Package weight and dimensions are shared fields, so a towel sold in hand and bath sizes declares one parcel for both.⁵ TikTok’s pages do not say which to declare. For orders shipped via the platform, its parcel guide of 2 July 2026 lets you edit each order’s parcel before printing the label, and charges a parcel heavier or bigger than declared at the correct rate plus a handling fee.¹⁸

A brand you are not yet authorised for. Brand authorisation is TikTok’s permission to list a brand. You apply in the Qualification Centre as the trademark owner, or as a seller authorised by the owner or by one of its authorised distributors; a proof of purchase route is open only to selected sellers. Once approved, the brand name cannot be changed.⁸

Where RefynData fits, and what to do next

All of this happens in the spreadsheet, before TikTok sees a row, and it is the part we prepare from supplier spreadsheets for TikTok Shop. Each SKU or barcode is matched to the real product, missing barcodes and full-size photos are filled in from its sources, and the brand is taken from the product’s own pages for you to confirm. Every image link is checked, every measure converted to one unit, and titles and descriptions are written from the values in the data, to enforced length limits. Every value keeps a link to its source; you copy the file into TikTok Shop’s template, and the upload and any brand authorisation stay with you.

Whichever way the file is built, upload one product in its three colours before three hundred, and keep each fix as a rule for that supplier: the next delivery will bring the same names, the same kilograms and the same 5.01235E+12. That preparation, for every supplier file, is RefynData’s product data enrichment service.