ChannelEngine: channel offers and out of sync offer tasks [beta]
About this article
This article describes the Channel offers and Out of sync offer tasks tabs on the Listed products page of ChannelEngine. These tabs are currently available on a limited number of marketplaces, including Amazon, bol, eBay, Walmart, and Zalando.
Table of contents
Introduction
Setup
Channel offers
Introduction
Once you have activated a marketplace, the Listed products tab can provide you with detailed information on the state of your products, exports, the marketplace itself, and more.
Setup
To activate the Channel offers and Out of sync offer tasks tabs on the Listed products page for a marketplace, reach out to your customer success manager or contact the Support team.
Channel offers
The graphical header on the Listed products page shows the number of offers on the marketplace, including the count and percentage of those that are online and offline.
- Online - the product is available for purchase on the marketplace.
- Offline - the product is not available for purchase. This may be due to reasons such as zero stock level.
The Channel offers tab displays all the product offers on the marketplace. In contrast, the Listed products tab shows the product offers exported by ChannelEngine. Ideally, the Channel offers tab and the Listed products tab should contain the same offers and offer information. This means that all products in the product selection are listed on the marketplace. However, this is not always the case.
Sometimes, the information on the marketplace – such as price, stock, or delivery time – differs from what is stored on ChannelEngine. To address this, ChannelEngine compares the offer information on the marketplace with what is stored on ChannelEngine and attempts to update the marketplace information. This helps prevent issues like overselling or having incorrect prices or delivery times on an order.
Search, settings, and filters
At the top of the Channel offers overview, there is a search bar and several different filters. Use the search bar to filter on one or more specific products by entering an identifier, such as the EAN/GTIN or the Merchant product number. The functionality of the filters is detailed below.
- Condition - allows you to filter on the product's condition. The options differ per marketplace. E.g.: New.
- Shipping time - allows you to filter on the time it takes to ship the product to the buyer. The options differ per marketplace.
- Channel status - allows you to filter on the product's status as indicated on the marketplace. The options differ per marketplace. E.g.: Active, On hold, Not for sale.
- Countries* - allows you to filter on the sales channels, if the marketplace supports them.
- Status - allows you to filter on the generic status of the product offer on the marketplace. The options are 'Online' or 'Offline'.
- Additional filters - allows you to filter on other aspects, such as the fulfillment by marketplace.
* A marketplace that supports sales channels allows you to list and sell products across multiple countries, all from the same connection.
To reset the filters, click the Clear filters button.
Overview
Below is the listed channel offers grid. This grid is composed of several columns, which can vary depending on the marketplace and the information it communicates.
- Image - shows a thumbnail of the product. If no image is shown, it may indicate that the product exists only on the marketplace, not on ChannelEngine, or that no content is exported to the marketplace, only offers.
- Product details - shows the product's title along with the identifiers, such as the Merchant product number/SKU, Channel product number, and the product's EAN/GTIN/ASIN.
- Offer number - shows internal identifier for the product offer on the marketplace.
- Price - shows the product's current price on the marketplace.
- Stock - shows the product's current stock level on the marketplace
- Fulfillment by channel - shows whether the product is fulfilled by the marketplace, such as ZFS or LVB. The options are 'True' or 'False'. Depending on the fulfillment service, the name of this column may differ.
- Condition - shows the product's condition if visible on the marketplace. Otherwise, this field is empty.
- Shipping time (days) - shows the number of days it takes to ship the product, as is visible on the marketplace.
- Channel status - shows the exact status of the product offer on the marketplace. E.g.: In review.
- Status - shows the generic status of the product offer on the marketplace, standardized by ChannelEngine. The options are 'Online' or 'Offline'.
If some products in the grid do not have corresponding identifiers, such as Merchant product number, they are marked by an empty orange bubble below the product name. These products are available for sale on the marketplace but are missing from ChannelEngine (aka ghost products). Investigate why these products are listed on the marketplace, as you might still be receiving orders for these offers, but the stock or price is not updated by ChannelEngine.
The common reasons for ghost products are:
- The product was accidentally removed from or not added to the product selection on ChannelEngine, but is still active on the marketplace. In this case, you can add the product to product selection.
- A different system is used to manage the product on the marketplace, such as a different integrator, a product feed directly uploaded to the marketplace, or connection set up between your system (e.g.: ERP or OMS) and the marketplace.
If no action is taken, the ghost products remain listed on the marketplace. If you choose to remove ghost products from the marketplace, contact your customer success manager or the ChannelEngine's Support, to enable the External products synchronization setting. This triggers an attempt to remove ghost products from the marketplace.
Out of sync offer tasks
Once the External products synchronization setting has been enabled, you can navigate to the Out of sync offer tasks tab. This tab shows products scheduled for deletion and their statuses. At the top of the tab, there is a search bar and a status filter.
Overview
The Out of sync offer tasks grid contains the following columns:
- Product details - shows the product's title along with the identifiers, such as the Merchant product number/SKU, Channel product number, and the product's EAN/GTIN/ASIN.
- Action - shows the action ChannelEngines performs with the ghost product. The action is always Delete.
-
Status - shows the status of the product scheduled for deletion. The statuses are:
- Deleted - the product was removed from the marketplace successfully.
- Created - the product is scheduled for deletion but not yet deleted.
- Failed to delete - the product could not be deleted.
- Error reason - shows the reason why the product failed to be deleted.
- Created at - shows the date and time when the deletion task was initiated.
- Updated at - shows the date and time when the deletion task was last attempted.
Offer comparison
You can compare the offer information exported to the marketplace with the offer information currently displayed on the marketplace. For that, go to the Product details page. In the Listed channels and mappings section, find the following accordion grids:
- Channel offers - shows the offer information on the marketplace. This corresponds to the information on the Channel offers tab of the Listed products page.
- Price comparison - compares the price last exported by ChannelEngine with the price currently displayed on the marketplace.
- Stock comparison - compares the stock last exported by ChannelEngine with the stock currently displayed on the marketplace.
- Delivery time comparison - compares the delivery time last exported by ChannelEngine with the delivery time currently displayed on the marketplace.
If ChannelEngine detects a discrepancy between the exported values and the current marketplace values, it attempts to update the marketplace with the values stored on ChannelEngine.
The fields in the grid are as follows:
- Import at - shows the date and time of the last import of the offer information from the marketplace.
- Last exported value - shows the value for the attribute that was last exported by ChannelEngine.
- Channel value - shows the current value for the attribute on the marketplace.
- Result - shows the action ChannelEngine takes to fix the discrepancy. The options are 'Update' or 'No update'. If the values are the same and no action is needed, 'No update' is shown.
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