Contact import

Bring an existing address book into Selloff

Most auction houses arrive with years of contacts in spreadsheets, an old system or a mailing tool. The contact import turns an Excel file into Selloff contact records without retyping, and keeps a trace of where each contact came from.

How it works

Prepare an XLSX file with one contact per row. Only the last name and the country are required; the country can be written as a name, which Selloff matches against its country list. Optional columns cover title, first name, company, address and P.O. box, language, email, up to eight phone numbers, remarks and a default purchase limit.

Tags are imported as a comma-separated list and created automatically if they do not exist yet. Collecting areas are matched against your existing categories by ID or full name.

Before you start, give the import a source name. It is written on every imported contact, so you can later build a smart list of, for example, everyone who came from a trade fair.

Controls and follow-up

• Duplicates are detected on last name, postal code and country; Force import lets deliberate homonyms through.
• Email addresses must be unique across the whole database.
• Imports are queued and processed in the background, so large files do not block your screen.
• An email confirms success or, in case of failure, attaches an XLSX report of the rows to fix.
• The import history shows each file's status and number of imported contacts, lets you download the original file and retry with a corrected one.