CHECK24: marketplace guide

About this guide

This is a ChannelEngine guide on the Munich, Germany-based marketplace CHECK24. Here you can find information on how to request a CHECK24 account, how to configure this marketplace on ChannelEngine, and what the specific requirements are.

Table of contents

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Product selection
• Mappings

FAQs

Commercial information

How to request an account

To start selling on CHECK24, you can register via its website. You must also meet the following requirements:

• Your business is based in the European Union (EU).
• Products are offered in the home and living category.
• Use the direct purchase model – the customer buys the product on CHECK24, and CHECK24 forwards the order to you.
• Have a VAT ID for the country from which the products are shipped.
• Have customs tariff numbers for your products if your warehouse is outside Germany.
• Provide all product content in German.

Associated costs

CHECK24 does not charge setup or monthly fees, but it applies a 12% commission to each order.

Marketplace features

*CHECK24 uses a machine learning mechanism to group variations under a parent.

Settings and configuration

Setting up each channel on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, though not every channel includes the steps listed below.

1. Go through the Setup.
2. Create a Product selection.
3. Complete the Categorization.
4. Set up the Mappings: content, offers, and carriers.
5. Configure the Pricing: rules and currency conversion.
6. Fill in the Stock settings.
7. Finish the Activation.
8. Check the Listed products overview.

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

This section describes extra steps and deviations from the standard settings and configuration steps that are required to successfully configure the CHECK24 plugin on ChannelEngine.

Setup

On ChannelEngine

This channel must connect to your channel plugin on ChannelEngine to consume your product content and offers and to push orders to you. Therefore, you need to provide your contact person at this channel with the following information:

• Your ChannelEngine base URL https://[yourtenant].channelengine.net
• The Channel API key
• Your channel-specific product feed URLs*

The Channel API is this channel's gateway to your products on ChannelEngine. To find your Channel API key:

1. In your channel plugin on the ChannelEngine Dashboard, and go to Setup, General.
2. Locate the API key field.

*To retrieve the channel-specific product feed URLs, check out the next section on creating your product selection.

Product selection

This channel accesses your product data directly from source files that ChannelEngine generates. In the Product selection step, you see two URLs. These are placeholders for two versions of the product feed that this channel receives from ChannelEngine – one in CSV and one in XML format.

To generate the product feed files for this channel:

1. Create a product selection for this channel.
2. Check which attributes the channel requires you to map, and make sure these attributes are stored in either the standard ChannelEngine fields or your custom fields.
3. If your product data contains custom fields, mark them as public. For guidance on marking custom fields as public, see the Custom fields section below.
4. Complete the remaining steps in Settings and configuration.
5. Let ChannelEngine run its export task for the first time. This task runs every 60 minutes.

The feed content is visible after you finish the Activation step and ChannelEngine completes its export task.

Custom fields

To include your custom fields in the generated feed and, therefore, expose your custom fields to this marketplace, mark them as public on ChannelEngine.

To mark your custom fields as public:

1. Go to Products, Custom fields.
2. Locate the custom field that you want to expose to this channel.
3. Change the Include in channel product feed status by selecting the pencil icon and setting it to enabled.

For more guidance on custom fields, check out ChannelEngine: custom fields.

Mappings

Content

CHECK24's mappings contain standard ChannelEngine attributes. Some can be left empty, even though they are marked as required. However, it is recommended to map as many attributes as possible. The more you map, the greater the product's visibility on the marketplace. This, in turn, tends to lead to a higher conversion rate.

Beyond the attributes in Content mappings, CHECK24 requires you to include the attributes below in your product feed; several require you to create custom fields on ChannelEngine. For detailed guidance on what to map to each attribute, refer to the product feed guidelines in the attachments at the bottom of this article (in German and in English). 

All products (required)

• Brand - the product's brand or manufacturer. Ensure the spelling matches the official brand name.
• Color - the product's color. E.g.: rot.
• Delivery time - the time it takes to ship a product, in days.
• Description - the product's detailed description. HTML formatting is supported. There is no character limit. The requirements are:
  • Include the product's special features and unique selling points (USPs).
  • Only describe the specific product variation, in case the product has variations, e.g.: colors, sizes.
  • Do not mention that the product comes in different colors or sizes, i.e.: has variations.
  • Exclude any advertising or marketing copy.
  • Exclude any links or cross-selling copy. E.g.: das passende Zubehör finden Sie in unserem Shop.
• Dimensions - the product's dimensions, such as height, width, and depth, measured in cm. E.g.: 100 x 1.5 x 37 cm.
• EAN - the product's 14-digit EAN.
• HS code - the customs tariff number. This code is required if you do not have a German VAT ID.
• Image URL - the product's images. The requirements are:
  • Minimum resolution - 800x600 px.
  • At least four images per product. Include a cropped image, a milieu image, and detail image.
  • Images and offers must match. E.g.: for color variations, the product must have images in the corresponding color.
  • No logos in the images.
• Name - the product's title. The requirements are:
  • Should contain the most important information about the product.
  • Structure - [Brand] [Title] [Product equipment] [Material] [Color] [Measurements]. E.g.: Dream furniture 'Dream' Boxspringbett mit LED-Licht, Kunstleder schwarz, 180 x 200 cm.
• Price - the product's regular selling price.
• Scope of delivery - what is included in the delivered package. E.g.: Die Lieferung umfasst eine Matratze. Ein Matratzenbezug ist nicht im Lieferumfang enthalten.
• Seller offer ID - the product's internal identifier, such as the SKU.
• Shipping mode - the product's shipping mode.
• Stock - the number of stock units available.

Optional attributes

• Assembly instructions - the product's assembly instructions, in PDF.
• Assembly service - the cost of the assembly service, if applicable.
• Category path - the product's category path. E.g.: Schlafzimmer > Betten > Boxspringbett.
• Deep link - the link to the product's page in your webstore.
• Delivery place use - the delivery costs to the installation site, if applicable.
  • 0 - free delivery
  • 'x' € - delivery cost.
  • Empty field - service not offered.
• Disposal old furniture - the cost for disposing of old furniture.
• Energy efficiency category - the product's energy efficiency category (A to G). Do not include outdated categories, such as A++.
• Energy efficiency label - the product's energy efficiency label, in PDF or JPG.
• EPREL registration number - the registration number in the EPREL product registry (for products with energy labels).
• Manufacturer - the product's manufacturer.
• Manufacturer address - the address of the manufacturer.
• Manufacturer email - the email of the manufacturer.
• Material - the product's material or fabric. E.g.: Holz.
• Product data sheet - the product data sheet, in PDF.
• Size - the product's size.
• Two-man handling - for delivery by a forwarding agent, specify if the product is delivered:
  • To the curb
  • To the customer's home
• Video - the link to the product's video on YouTube.

Category-specific

For guidance on which attributes to map in specific categories, refer to the product feed guidelines in the attachments below.

Offer

• Price before (re)price rules - your selling price. If you have pricing v2 activated, check out the Pricing section below.  

Carrier

Carrier mapping is not required on CHECK24. 

Pricing

In Mappings, Offer mappings, the following offer attribute may appear on this channel, if this channel uses pricing v2:

• Allow promotion below min price - set it to ‘true’ to allow the promotion price to drop below your product's minimum price. 

In Mappings, Fee group mappings, map the marketplace fee group ID of the product.

Listed products

CHECK24 uses product feeds instead of an API connection for product data. As a result, the Listed products page does not display the up-to-date product status or applicable errors.

Products that are published on the marketplace do not show the Published status on the Listed products page. Instead, they remain in Create status.

Additional information

Shipments

Note that the shipment method you provide must match the carrier identifier on CHECK24. Below are the carrier identifiers supported by CHECK24.

Mapping: carriers to CHECK24 carrier ID

FAQs

Why are my shipments stuck as 'Not exported yet'?
CHECK24 uses ChannelEngine's Channel API, so ChannelEngine does not initiate the import and export of data to and from the marketplace. If your shipments are not exported and not visible on CHECK24's back-end platform, something is wrong with the import of the shipment information. Please contact CHECK24's customer service to investigate this. You can copy ChannelEngine's Support team in the email, if needed.