Every column in order
Rows start with an index of some kind, and it means almost nothing. Sheet row numbers shift whenever someone inserts a line, and a hand-written number is a bookmark rather than a key. The first column that carries real weight is the item identifier: a long numeric string that survives copying between agents, survives a dead wrapper, and can be tested by anybody. Titles and prices drift; the identifier does not. Everything downstream depends on getting that one field right, and nothing else in the row can replace it.
Next comes the address as written, followed by whatever marker shows where it points. In this period's sample every wrapped address carried the same source marker, and the identifier inside it was the only part that changed from row to row. A careful sheet keeps the address exactly as it was found. A tidied sheet rewrites it, and a rewritten address is no longer evidence of anything. Note the day the address was copied as well; an address with no date cannot be compared with anything later.
The middle columns handle money and movement: price as written, variant or size, weight if anyone recorded it, and the route or service the row was planned for. Prices copied from a listing page usually exclude everything that happens after the item leaves the seller, and a weight written by hand is an estimate even when it looks precise. The exception is a weight taken from a shipping notice, which deserves marking as measured. Treat the rest as planning notes rather than as measurements with a source.
The last block covers condition and sequence: a batch or round label, a QC flag or a note that photos exist, a status word typed by whoever maintained the file, and one or more dates. The status word is the column that causes the most damage, because it reads like a live check while usually recording what someone believed on the day they typed it. Where two dates are present, the later one usually describes the check and the earlier one the typing.
Misreadings we keep seeing
The most frequent error is treating a typed status as a current one. Words like live, verified or working get typed once and survive for months, while the underlying address may have stopped answering the following week. This site's own labels are deliberately narrow: resolves means the rebuilt source address answered during that period, and nothing more. It is not a stock notice, an authenticity check or a promise about tomorrow. Anything stronger than that needs its own evidence and its own date.
The second error is reading a price column as a total. A figure in a sheet is normally what the seller asked, captured on some unknown day, in a currency the column rarely states. Shipping, handling and any duty charged at the border are separate events that happen later, and none of them appear in the row. Add those before you compare two rows, or the comparison will mislead you in both directions. Read the price as a starting point for a conversation, never as the number you will pay.
The third error is mistaking a batch or round label for a quality signal. Those labels exist to group rows that arrived together, which is useful for finding siblings and useless for judging anything about the item itself. A high label is not better than a low one. What the label does carry is the day the group arrived, which is occasionally useful when chasing a set of items together. The same confusion turns a photographer's note into a grade, and a grade into a promise nobody made.
The fourth error is assuming an address in a row is the product. In this period's sample, all thirty-one wrapped addresses failed at the network layer while every source address they encode answered normally. A dead address in a cell tells you that a layer in front of the listing stopped working. It says nothing about whether the seller still has the item, and nothing about its condition. Check the address before you repeat the claim, and check it again the next time you pass the row.
How each column should be used
Read a row as a set of pairs rather than as a line of facts. The identifier pairs with the address, because together they let anyone rebuild and test the link. The title pairs with the variant, because a size note only means something next to the listing it was copied from. The price pairs with the route, because the route is where most of the cost lands. Everything else is commentary until it earns a date. A row where nothing pairs cleanly has not really been read yet.
Never overwrite what you were given. Add columns to the right of the original text and put your own work there: the source address you rebuilt, the date you checked, what the check returned, and which sample identifier covers the row. That way the row stays readable to the person who made it and gains a second layer that is yours. Editing in place destroys the only comparison you will ever have, and it also removes your ability to show what changed if anyone asks later.
Where headers disagree between sheets, map them rather than merging them. One file writes cost, another writes price, a third writes an amount with a currency symbol glued on; the sheet column mapper exists to walk a header row, match each label to a field, and show you which columns it could not place. Any column it cannot place is a column where your own reading has to be careful, and where a wrong guess will follow the data downstream. Keep a note of which sheet each header came from.
Then decide what the row is for. A row kept for reference needs the identifier, the address, the date and the source of the row. A row kept for a dispute needs the same four things plus the amount, the channel and the reply. A row kept for planning needs the variant, the weight estimate and the route. Most confusion comes from one row trying to be all three at once, which is why the useful habit is a second, purpose-built table. A purpose written at the top of it saves the next reader an argument.
Quick index
Identity fields: row index, item identifier, title, variant. The index is disposable, the identifier is permanent, and the title is a description rather than a name. If two rows share an identifier, they are the same listing, however different the titles look. Two rows that share an identifier also share every downstream consequence, including a shared mistake. If two rows share a title but not an identifier, they are probably different listings, and the only way to know is to open both and compare what the seller wrote.
Address fields: the address as written, the marker showing where it points, the rebuilt source address, and the date of the last check. Keep all four together or the other three lose their meaning. A rebuilt address with no check date is a claim; a rebuilt address with a check date is a record someone else can reproduce in a minute. The check date is also what tells a future reader whether the claim still carries any weight, which is the question every stale row eventually raises.
Money and movement fields: price as written, currency if the sheet says, variant cost difference, weight estimate, route or service. Each of these is a planning input with a shelf life. Write down where each figure came from and the day you saw it, or expect to re-derive it later from scratch. Provenance is cheap to record at the moment of copying and expensive to reconstruct afterwards. Figures without it get quoted back at you as if they were measured, usually by someone else.
Condition and sequence fields: batch label, photo reference, claimed status, date added, date last checked, notes. The claimed status is the one to distrust first, and the date last checked is the one to fill in yourself. Fill that date even when the rest of the row arrived from someone else, because it is the field that makes the row usable. Where a column question will not settle, the answers page collects the recurring ones, including the column questions readers send in most often.