Brand accounts: connecting your catalogue
How brands and distributors get their master product list into Pricemaster, and how a brand account differs from a retail one once you are set up.
A brand account watches the market rather than competing in it
When you add a site, Pricemaster asks whether you are a Retailer or a Brand. That single answer changes what the account is built around, so it is worth understanding before you pick.
| Retail account | Brand account | |
|---|---|---|
| Product source | Your live storefront — Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce or Linnworks | A master product list you supply as a feed |
| The market you track | Competitors — other shops selling the same products | Retailers and resellers — the shops stocking your range |
| The question you are asking | “Am I competitive, and where can I make more margin?” | “Who is stocking my products, and are they respecting my RRP?” |
| Price writes | Prices are pushed back to your store once you enable it | None — a brand catalogue is read-only inside Pricemaster |
| Typical output | Automated repricing | RRP compliance reporting, retailer benchmarking, and feeds back out to your stockists |
Three ways to get your catalogue in
Google Sheets
Best when your catalogue is small enough to live in a spreadsheet, or when the people who maintain it are not technical. Easiest to set up, easiest to correct.
FTP or SFTP
Best when your catalogue is exported automatically from an ERP or PIM. Your system drops a CSV on a schedule and Pricemaster collects it — no one has to remember to do anything.
Linnworks
Best when you already run Linnworks. Pricemaster pulls the catalogue directly, so there is no file to maintain at all. See the Linnworks guide.
None of these is a stopgap. Sheet-backed and file-backed brand accounts run permanently and are the normal setup, not a temporary measure until something better arrives.
Connecting a Google Sheet
Put your catalogue in a sheet with a header row
One product per row, one column per field, and a header row naming each column. Keep the header names stable — renaming a column stops that field populating.
Share it so anyone with the link can view
View access is enough — Pricemaster never writes to your sheet. If sharing is restricted, the connection will fail with a permissions error at the point you paste the link.
Paste the link into Pricemaster
Choose Brand, then Google Sheets, and paste the URL along with your brand name and website. Pricemaster reads the sheet immediately and counts the rows, so you find out there and then whether it worked.
Map your columns
Tell Pricemaster which column is the SKU, which is the RRP, which is cost, and so on. This is done once and remembered for every future read.
The full detail, including the column mapping screen, is covered in Google Sheets onboarding.
Connecting an FTP or SFTP drop
If your ERP or PIM already exports a product CSV, this is usually the least work to maintain: your system writes the file, Pricemaster collects it, and nobody has to remember a manual step.
What you will need
- Protocol — FTP or SFTP. Use SFTP where your server supports it.
- Host and port — for example
ftp.yourcompany.comon port 21, or SFTP on port 22. - Username and password for an account that can read the folder. A read-only account is ideal — Pricemaster never needs to write.
- The folder path holding your CSVs, for example
/exports/pricemaster. Leave it blank to use the login’s home directory. - Passive mode — usually yes for plain FTP through a firewall. If the connection hangs rather than failing outright, this is the setting to change.
How to structure the drop
- Write a complete catalogue file each time rather than incremental changes. Full snapshots are far easier to reason about when a number looks wrong.
- Keep the filename and the column layout stable between exports.
- Export at a predictable time, and set your Pricemaster import schedule to run after it.
- Write to a temporary name and rename on completion if your system can, so Pricemaster never picks up a half-written file.
What to put in your catalogue file
The same guidance applies whether you are using a sheet or a CSV drop.
| Field | Needed? | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| SKU or product code | Essential | The identity of the product. Must be unique and must stay stable between exports. |
| Product name | Essential | Used when matching your products to retailer listings, so a full, accurate name matches better than an internal shorthand. |
| EAN / GTIN / barcode | Strongly recommended | By far the most reliable way to match your product to a retailer’s listing. Include it wherever you have it. |
| MPN | Recommended | A useful second identifier when a retailer does not publish barcodes. |
| RRP | Essential | The benchmark every compliance report is measured against. Without it, there is nothing to compare retailer prices to. |
| Trade or cost price | Optional | Lets Pricemaster show retailer margin as well as retailer price, which makes conversations with stockists much more concrete. |
| Brand | Recommended | Essential if you carry more than one brand — it is how reports are grouped. |
| Category | Recommended | Lets you filter and report by range rather than working through a flat list. |
| Image URL | Optional | Makes visual checking of matches much faster when you are reviewing whether a listing is genuinely your product. |
What to do once your catalogue is in
Brand accounts go straight to your product list once the connection is made, rather than through the guided step-by-step flow a retail account sees. So work through this order yourself.
Check the import landed correctly
Open your product list and confirm the row count matches your file, that RRPs look right, and that barcodes came across rather than being truncated or turned into scientific notation by a spreadsheet.
Build your retailer list
Under Retailers, add the stockists you want to monitor. Pricemaster will find candidates for you, and you approve the ones that matter.
Include your own direct-to-consumer store if you have one — leaving it out makes every compliance report read as though you are absent from your own market.
Review the first matches
Once scraping has run, check a sample of matched listings and confirm they really are your product. Unmatch anything that is a multipack, a spare part, or a different variant — these are the matches that distort a compliance report.
Set your import schedule
Under Site Settings → Schedules, set the catalogue to re-read on a cadence that matches how often your file changes. Daily is right for most brands.
Turn it into reporting
From here, RRP compliance, retailer benchmarking and stockist feeds are all available. Talk to the Pricemaster team about which reports fit what you are trying to answer — brand reporting is usually configured with you rather than picked off a menu.
Frequently asked
Will Pricemaster change my prices?
No. A brand catalogue is read-only. Pricemaster reads your file and reports on the market — it never writes back to a sheet or an FTP server.
Can I see retailer margin, not just price?
Yes, if you include a trade or cost price in your file. Without it, reports show retailer prices against RRP but cannot show what the retailer is making.
How often is my catalogue re-read?
On whatever schedule you set, typically daily. The file needs to stay in the same place with the same layout for that to keep working.
My barcodes arrived mangled
Almost always a spreadsheet converting long numbers to scientific notation. Format the column as text before exporting, and re-import.
Can I send data back out to my stockists?
Yes. Brand accounts can publish per-retailer feeds of prices, costs and promotions. Ask the Pricemaster team — these are configured per relationship.
I picked Retailer by mistake
Ask the Pricemaster team to switch the account type rather than starting over. Your products and matches are kept.