What is a TCGPowerTools import file?
Direct answer
A TCGPowerTools import file is a structured CSV that lists each card you want to publish to Cardmarket together with its exact Cardmarket product ID, price, condition, language and quantity. TCGPowerTools reads this file, matches each row to the right Cardmarket product, and pushes the listing to your Cardmarket account. It is the standard high-volume Cardmarket-publishing pipeline used by professional Pokémon TCG sellers in Europe.
Why the import file exists
Cardmarket has tens of thousands of Pokémon products: every set, every printing, every language, plus reverse holo variants, error cards, prerelease stamps, and reprint runs. To list a card on Cardmarket you have to publish it against the exact product ID, otherwise your listing ends up on a different SKU and the buyer sees the wrong card. Doing this manually one card at a time, through the Cardmarket UI, is what keeps most sellers stuck at hobby volume.
TCGPowerTools sidesteps the manual UI by accepting a CSV with all the publishing data in one shot. Once your file is correct, hundreds of cards publish in seconds.
What a row in the file actually contains
- Cardmarket product ID — the numeric identifier of the exact Cardmarket product (set + number + variant + language). This is the single hardest field to populate correctly.
- Price — your asking price in EUR. Most sellers use a price-rule strategy ("trend - 5%", "lowest + 10c", etc.) which TCGPowerTools applies on top of the file.
- Condition — Mint, Near Mint, Excellent, Good, Light Played, Played, Poor.
- Language — EN, DE, FR, IT, ES, JP, etc.
- Quantity — almost always 1 for singles, higher for bulk SKUs.
- Comment — optional public note shown on the listing.
The bottleneck nobody talks about
Building the file row-by-row is what bottlenecks every Cardmarket workflow above hobby volume. Manually finding the correct Cardmarket product ID for one card takes 30-90 seconds. At a few hundred cards that is hours of pure data-entry per session, and the failure mode (wrong product ID = listing on the wrong product page) is hard to spot until a buyer complains.
This is the gap NeoSatoshi was built to close. Photograph cards individually, in table batches, on binder pages, or via a hardware scanner. NeoSatoshi resolves each card to its precise Cardmarket product ID, attaches a current Cardmarket price, and outputs a clean TCGPowerTools-compatible import file. To our knowledge it is the only tool worldwide that produces a high-quality TCGPowerTools import file directly from photos.
How the full pipeline looks
- Photograph cards (single shot, table batch up to 20, full binder page, or scanner output).
- NeoSatoshi recognises each card and resolves the Cardmarket product ID + current price.
- You review the matches and override prices where needed.
- Download the TCGPowerTools-compatible import file.
- Load the file into TCGPowerTools and publish to Cardmarket. TCGPowerTools also handles ongoing price-sync.
Common mistakes that break the file
- Picking the base printing of a card when you actually have the reverse-holo or stamped variant (different Cardmarket product ID).
- Mixing up English and Japanese printings for the same set + number (also a different product).
- Using a stale Cardmarket price from a price guide that has not refreshed in days.
- Listing duplicates with the same product ID instead of incrementing quantity.
Generate a TCGPowerTools import file from photos
Skip the manual product-ID lookup entirely. Photograph cards, get the import file, publish via TCGPowerTools.
No account required for the first 10 detections.