Inventory2 min read

How to find and merge duplicate items

Duplicates happen: an item gets entered twice, or an import lands alongside the copy you had already made by hand. You do not have to hunt for them by scrolling — ResaleOS groups them for you, and can fold two records into one without detaching the listing.

1

Open the Channels view of your products

Go to Products and switch the view from Items to Channels. This is the grid that shows one row per item and one column per marketplace — the same list you already use for crosslisting.

2

Filter to Possible duplicates

The listing-state filter has a Possible duplicates option. It groups items that share a SKU, share an identical title, or use the same photo — the three things a real duplicate almost always has in common. Members of a group sit together so you can compare them side by side.

3

Merge the real ones, dismiss the rest

Merge folds one record into the other: you choose which one survives, and its channel links come with it. Not actually the same item — two of the same shirt in different sizes, say? Dismiss the pair and we stop proposing it, without hiding either item from a genuine duplicate later on.

Don't delete a duplicate — merge it

Deleting the spare record throws away whatever was attached to it, and deleting an item does not take its marketplace listing down. Merge instead: it moves the channel links onto the item you keep. If one side carries money — a sale, a consignor payout, a gift card, or a purchase order — ResaleOS refuses to fold that side away and tells you which one to keep instead.

How it decides

What counts as a possible duplicate

Three signals

The same SKU, a character-for-character identical title, or the same image. Near-misses are deliberately left alone — a filter full of false positives is one nobody uses.

Groups, not pairs

If A shares a SKU with B and B shares a photo with C, all three are reviewed together rather than split into pairs that contradict each other.

Variants are exempt

A multi-variant product mirrors its parent's title and SKU across each variant, so those are excluded — otherwise every size of every item would report as a duplicate of itself.

Or just ask

Daphne, the assistant built into your dashboard, can run the same scan — “check my inventory for duplicates” — and report the groups it finds with links to each item. It reports; you decide what to merge.

One item, one record

Especially worth a pass right after a migration, when hand-entered items and imported ones meet for the first time.