Octopia: marketplace guide

About this guide

This is a ChannelEngine guide on the Octopia marketplace. Here you can find information on how to configure this marketplace and its sales channels on ChannelEngine, what the specific requirements are, and more.

Table of contents

About the marketplace

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Listed products

Additional information

FAQs

About the marketplace

Similar to ChannelEngine, Octopia allows merchants to connect with multiple different marketplaces at the same time. These marketplaces include:

• Alizeade
• Alltricks
• Bebeboutik
• Brico Dépôt
• Castorama
• Cdiscount
• CDON
• Darty
• Empik
• Fruugo
• Fyndiq
• Hobby Hall
• Joom
• Kingfisher
• leboncoin
• Marjane
• OnBuy
• Pigu
• Praxis
• Rakuten
• Wish
• Worten

To configure these on ChannelEngine, add an instance of the Octopia channel to your tenant. Each marketplace is considered a sales channel on Octopia, meaning you can list and sell products across multiple marketplaces (e.g.: countries, regions), all from the same Octopia connection.

Commercial information

* Although you can submit your product content in three languages, Octopia strongly recommends submitting it in French and using their automatic translation service.

How to request an account

To start selling on Octopia's sales channels, you first need to create an account on Cdiscount. To do so, fill out the registration form. Once your Cdiscount account is active, you can expand into other sales channels within Octopia’s network.

Note that each sales channel has different merchant requirements. To check if you are eligible for selling, in your Octopia seller zone, go to Settings, Your sales channels.

Associated costs

Setup fees, commissions, and monthly costs vary per sales channel. To find out the exact costs, contact the sales channel directly or check out the corresponding marketplace guide in the Help Center, if there is one.

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Setting up each marketplace on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, though not every marketplace 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. Finish the Activation.
7. Check the Listed products overview.

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

Setup

On Octopia

To connect your marketplace account with ChannelEngine, retrieve the Seller ID from Octopia API portal.

1. On Octopia API portal homepage, click API credentials management, Get access.
2. Select I am using a feed Aggregator, and then My aggregator only requests my Seller ID. 
3. Select ChannelEngine from the drop-down list.
4. Grant ChannelEngine access to your seller account.
5. Enter your Octopia seller zone credentials and receive your Seller ID. Copy and save it for later.

On ChannelEngine

1. On the Setup tab, enter the credentials in the Seller ID field.
2. Click Save to complete the authorization process.

Advanced settings

• Use fulfillment service - enable this setting to use the Octopia Fulfillment service. Once enabled, ChannelEngine imports orders fulfilled by Octopia. You cannot choose which party fulfills an order – merchant or Octopia – this is entirely up to Octopia. If Octopia has sufficient stock to fulfill an order, they handle it. When their stock is depleted, they check your stock (as communicated by ChannelEngine) and switch the order to merchant fulfillment.

Categorization

Categorization is mandatory if you want to create or update existing product information on Octopia. To see all possible categories, select Browse in the lower left-hand corner of the Categorization page. The category tree has three levels.

Mappings

Content

All products (required)

• Brand - the brand of the product.
• Description - the description of the product, in French. HTML is not supported. The requirements are:
  • Maximum character count - 2,000.
  • Forbidden characters - °, ©, ®, ™, C°, FK, cm², m², cm³, m³, ?, regular expressions, e.g.: \p{Ll}, \p{Lu}, \p{Lm}.
• Image URL (main) - the main image of the product. The requirements are:
  • Resolution - between 500x500 px and 3,000x3,000 px.
  • Formats - JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF.
  • Maximum file size - 5 MB.
  • URL - 'https://'. 
• Product GTIN/EAN - the 13 digit GTIN of the product, such as an EAN.
• Product title - the title on the product details page, in French. HTML is not supported. The requirements are:
  • Format - [Product type] - [Brand] - [Description keywords] - [Model, for technical products] - [Gender, if applicable].
  • Maximum character count - 132.
  • Forbidden characters - °, ©, ®, ™, C°, FK, cm², m², cm³, m³, ?, regular expressions, e.g.: \p{Ll}, \p{Lu}, \p{Lm}.

All products (optional)

• Export content - choose whether to export product content to Octopia.
  • Yes - export your product content to Octopia to create a product or make changes to its existing content. Make sure that all required attributes are mapped.
  • No - do not export product content to Octopia. Use this option to link your offers to existing product content. This option only applies if your product is known to Octopia. Otherwise, you need to set the setting to 'Yes'.
• Image URL 1-5 - the additional images of the product. For image requirements, check Image URL (main).

Category-specific

• Marketing description - the long description of the product. Limited HTML is supported (only bold, strong, and br tags). The maximum number of characters is 5,000.
• International standard book number (ISBN) - only required if the product is a book.
• Labels et certifications (Labels and certifications) - represents the certifications that each product has, such as organic, fair trade, NF environment, etc.

Offer

While content mapping is only needed to create or update products on Octopia, some offer mappings are actually required to get your product online.

Required

• Condition - sets the condition of the product, the default value is 'new'. I.e.: new, as new, very good, refurbished, etc. If the category-specific attribute Condition override is left empty, the value mapped to this attribute is used.
• DEA tax - déchets d'éléments d'ameublement (DEA) is a French tax related to the recycling of furniture products. If you are not certain of how to use it or have not registered for it, set the value to zero.
• Eco tax - a French tax related to the recycling of high-tech products. If you are not certain of how to use it or have not registered for it, set the value to zero.
• (Sales channel) price - the regular selling price of the product for the respective sales channel.

Optional

• Add [method] shipping cost - set it to 'Yes' to use one of these shipping methods. At least one shipment method must be used.
• Shipping cost [method] - the costs you submit per shipping method. Match the shipping costs that you configured in the Octopia back-end. At least one is mandatory. Provide a value greater than zero, otherwise the The value is out of bounds, check the consistency of values error is shown. You must enter a decimal value, e.g., 7.95.

  Shipping method	Description
  Standard*	Delivery without tracking or signature.
  Registered*	Delivery without tracking, but with the signature of the customer upon reception.
  Tracked*	Delivery with tracking, but no signature.
  Express*	Delivered to the customer strictly within the stated delivery time.
  Fast	The customer collects their order at your store within six hours.
  Mondial Relay	Delivered via the Mondial Relay network of pick-up points.
  Relais Colis	Delivered via the Relais Colis network of pick-up points.
  Relay	The customer collects their order at your store.
  So Colissimo	Delivered via the So Colissimo network of pick-up points.
  Big Parcel Comfort	Specific for bulky parcels (>30 kg). It must be delivered, unpacked, and installed at the customer's home – in the room of their choice.
  Big Parcel Eco	Specific for bulky parcels (>30 kg). It must be delivered in front of the customer's home.
  Big Parcel Standard	Specific for bulky parcels (>30 kg). It must be delivered at the customer's home, in the room of their choice.

• • Maximum warehouse delivery time - the time, in days, it takes your carrier to ship the ordered product to the Octopia warehouse. Only map this if you work with fulfilment by Octopia.
  • Offer comment - enter an optional comment to be displayed on the offer. The maximum number of characters is 200. E.g.: The box has been opened and the product manual is missing.
  • Packaging unit - the packaging's unit of measurement, e.g., kg.
  • Packaging value - the packaging's measurement value, e.g., 0.6.
  • Preparation time - the time, in days, it takes to process an order and ship it. The value should range between 1 and 5 days.
  • VAT rate - the product's VAT rate. Provide a value for this attribute unless the standard VAT rate applies.

Discounts

To learn more about strikethrough pricing and setting up discounts on Octopia, check out the article Cdiscount: frequently asked questions.

• • (Marketplace) strikethrough price - the price attribute used to set up strikethrough pricing. Map this attribute to override the catalog price. If this is not mapped, the catalog price is used as a strikethrough price.
  • Discount % (from reference price) - the discount percentage used to set up a discount. Omit the percentage symbol and only indicate the numeric value. The maximum value is 100.
  • Sale end date - the date until when the product's discounted price is valid, if applicable. The supported format is YYYY-MM-DDT00:00. E.g.: 2023-12-31T23:59. Note that the interval between Sale start date and Sale end date cannot exceed 48 hours.
  • Sale start date - the date from when the product's discounted price is valid, if applicable. The supported format is YYYY-MM-DDT00:00. E.g.: 2023-12-31T23:59.
  • Sale type - set it if you want to configure a sale and, if so, what type. The options are no sale or discount %. Flash sales are no longer supported on Octopia.

Carrier

Octopia has a list of supported carriers that you can choose from. Tracking information is required to successfully export shipments.

Note that shipments can only be exported within 14 days of the initial order creation. If you ship an item after that period, your shipment returns an error and a notification is created.

Listed products

If you have problems with products not appearing on Octopia, check the Listed products section for more information.

You can either filter on Channel status (Invalid for all products that ChannelEngine has not exported, such as products with an empty EAN) or use the Validation and feedback tab to see all known validation/feedback errors for specific products.

Additional information

Order extra data items

When an order is imported to ChannelEngine, ChannelEngine also fetches extra data items related to the order itself – or to order lines. This extra data is specific to this marketplace. An explanation of each can be found below: 

Order extra data

* Conditional fields are only displayed if the marketplace provides a value.

FAQs

How often does each task run on Octopia-based marketplaces?

By default, Octopia-based marketplaces follow the schedule below:

For answers to the most commonly asked questions and error troubleshooting guidelines, check out the Cdiscount: frequently asked questions.

Why are my product categories different from those I selected on ChannelEngine?

Octopia automatically re-categorizes your products when they are exported. To prevent your selected product category from changing:

1. Remove any languages, other than French, from your product content. Your product content must be in French only.
2. Add the product's lowest level of category to the title. E.g.: for products in the 'Fashion > Trousers > Shorts' category, add 'shorts' to the title.
3. If Octopia re-categorizes a product to one that you do not agree with, contact Octopia support. Octopia will update the category manually.

Can I connect to existing offers on Octopia?

Yes, you can connect to existing offers on Octopia. However, if your product is not known to Octopia, you must complete the categorization and both content and offer mappings for that product. Besides, the Export content setting must be set to 'yes'.

How does Octopia communicate stock across sales channels?

Octopia sends the same stock level to all connected sales channels. It does not allocate stock per specific channel. E.g.: if you have 100 items in stock, Octopia reports a stock level of 100 to each sales channel.

How do I remove an offer from a specific sales channel on Octopia?

To remove a product from a sales channel, set its (Sales channel) price value to 0. This automatically removes the product listing from that channel.

Why do I see the error "[Product] non existent - request its creation in the ‘product creation’"?

This error occurs because the product has been exported to Octopia, but it is not yet available on the platform. Octopia's team must review and approve the product before it can be published.

Why do I get the error "Product refused: the quota of products to create sent over the last hour has been exceeded"?
This error appears when you exceed Octopia’s product creation quota. The quota limits the number of new products you can create per hour, day, or year. Once this limit is reached, Octopia does not accept new products until the quota resets.

To resolve this, you can:

• Wait for the quota to reset.
• Contact Octopia to request an increased limit.