ChannelEngine: freeze product

About this article

This article describes ChannelEngine’s Freeze product feature, how to enable it, and how to make use of it.

Table of contents

Introduction

Setup

• Via the web application
• Via the Merchant API

FAQs

Introduction

The Freeze product feature allows you to temporarily set a product's stock quantity to zero, making the product unavailable for sale on all the connected marketplaces. This provides a window for investigation and troubleshooting a stock-related issue, without the need to remove the product from your selection.

You can use the freeze product feature if:

• The product's stock has been lost or damaged.
• The product's stock or price is displayed incorrectly on one or more marketplaces.

Once the issue is resolved, you can unfreeze the product. This action reinstates the product's stock to the quantity specified on ChannelEngine, resuming the sales on the connected marketplaces.

Setup

Via the web application

To freeze a product via the ChannelEngine web application:

1. Go to Products, Products, and select the product you want to make temporarily unavailable.
2. At the top-right corner of the Product details page, click the Freeze product setting.
3. In the popup that appears, specify the reason for temporarily disabling the product. E.g.: the product's stock is displayed incorrectly on OTTO Market, causing overselling issues.
4. Wait between 30 and 60 minutes for the product's stock to be updated, as different marketplaces have different schedules for offer updates.
5. Once you have addressed the stock or pricing issue, return to the Product details page of the frozen product.
6. Click the Unfreeze product button. 
7. Indicate the reason for making the product available. E.g.: the issue with the missing stock has been resolved.

To view the freezing and unfreezing history of a product, along with the related comments, click the Freeze history button.

To filter your products on frozen products, toggle the Frozen products switch on the Products page.

Via the Merchant API

To freeze a product via ChannelEngine's Merchant API, send a request to the POST /v2/products/freeze endpoint with the required product information:

• Merchant product number - the identifier that makes your product unique on ChannelEngine. 
• Reason - the reason for temporarily disabling the product, or for making it available.
• Action - the action performed on the product. I.e.: freeze or unfreeze.

You can retrieve the state of your products by sending a request to the GET /v2/products endpoint. If the IsFrozen property is set to true, then the product is temporarily disabled.

FAQs

What happens if I freeze the stock of a product that is affected by other stock-related settings?

When the Freeze product feature is enabled, it takes precedence over other stock-related features, such as Stock limit or Stock buffer. All existing stock configurations are ignored – and the stock is automatically set to 0 (zero) across all connected marketplaces.