About You: marketplace guide

About this guide

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

Table of contents

Commercial information

About this marketplace

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Product selection
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Pricing

Additional information

FAQs

Commercial information

About this marketplace

About You operates a 3P marketplace model, meaning merchants maintain full ownership of their goods, set their own prices (price sovereignty), and handle fulfillment themselves (merchant fulfillment).

How to request an account

To start selling on About You, contact your customer success manager or a member of the Support team at ChannelEngine.

About You marketplace merchants must meet strict operational requirements, including:

• Orders shipped within 24 hours (excluding weekends and holidays)
• Delivery documents following the About You layout
• About You-branded packaging
• Self-adhesive return labels supporting the 100-day return policy
• Tracking codes provided for all shipments
• Responses within 24 hours to return notifications and customer service inquiries 
• Sufficient stock levels at all times
• A weekly cancelation rate at or below 1%

To ensure that you comply with all of About You's marketplace seller requirements, check out About You: checklist for marketplace sellers.

Associated costs

Costs such as commission rates, setup fees, and any other applicable charges are not fixed. About You determines these on an individual basis, in direct negotiation with you.

Marketplace features

*About You requires product variations with a grandparent product structure. Make sure that your products are set up with a grandparent-parent-child product structure before adding this channel.

**A marketplace that supports sales channels allows merchants to list and sell products across multiple markets (e.g.: countries, regions, and states), all from the same connection.

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

Setup

On About You

To establish the connection between About You and ChannelEngine, retrieve the following credentials from the About You platform:

• API key - once generated, your API key never expires.

To obtain your API access token, generate the key on the About You Seller Center:

1. Log in to the About You Seller Center.
2. Go to the API section.
3. Click Add API Key.
4. Enter a suitable label for the API key, e.g. ‘ChannelEngine API key’.

5. In Expires at (optional), do not set an expiration date. Leave this field empty so that the API key never expires.

   

6. Click Add key.

7. Copy the API key from this dialog box, and save it for a later configuration step on ChannelEngine.

   

On ChannelEngine

1. Add the About You (marketplace) channel plugin to your channel dashboard. Use the same plugin for all countries in which you sell on About You.
2. To configure the channel, go to the channel’s Setup step.

Settings

• Only use FbAY - keep this setting set to No.
• Countries - select one or more countries in which you sell on About You.
  • The order lines are identified by the country in which the product is sold. E.g.: About You [DE] - for orders in German, from Germany; About You [BF] - for orders in French, from Belgium.
  • Choosing countries in this field does not automatically mean that you sell in those countries; you must have an agreement with About You to sell in each respective country.

Connection

• API key - the API key from your About You marketplace account.

Advanced settings

• Set orders to closed after import - select Yes or No. If you select Yes, imported orders are automatically set to Closed, and inventory reservations are not updated. Shipments and returns are not imported and processed.
• Use fulfillment service - select Yes to import fulfillment stock from the marketplace, for sellers that use Fulfillment by About You (FbAY).
• Show non-default materials - select Yes to display all materials attributes that are available to map in every category. By default, it is set to No; only the materials attributes that are recommended by About You are displayed, keeping the Mappings step easier to scan. For details on mapping materials attributes, check out the Material composition section below.
• Mappable fields to use parent data - select which attributes should use values from the parent rather than the child product. Select one or both of Description and Name.
  • Regardless of what attributes you select in this setting, images always come from the parent product.
  • Do not configure this setting if there is no data on the parent products.

Product selection

Before you add a listing, make sure to have your brand and assortment approved by About You. To indicate if a product has been approved or not, it may be helpful to create a custom field named Pre-approved, and populate it with either 'yes' or 'no' values.

Categorization

The category tree is in English. Your categories are eventually published in the language of the sales country.

About You recommends listing unisex products in the Women category.

Mappings

About You manually approves all product data updates. Therefore, expect a delay between your product data export from ChannelEngine and seeing your live listing on About You.

Additionally, About You requires you to structure your product data in a grandparent-parent-child structure. Before starting the Mappings step, check that your product data contains the correct content at each level. 

To avoid product rejections, check out About You's article Common causes of product rejections and make sure your product data meets About You's requirements.

Content

All products (required)

• Country of origin - select the country where the product was produced.
• HS code - the EU customs tariff number.
• Weight - the weight of the product, in grams.

All products (optional)

• Description (en-EN) -  information about the product that is not obvious in the product images, but can influence the customer's decision to buy the product, e.g.: washing instructions, size/fit information, sport technologies, sport functions, sustainability information, etc. In English, defined per child or automatically inherited from the parent.
• Description (lang-LOCALE) - localized description of the product. One description per locale, defined per child or automatically inherited from the parent.
• Image 1-9 - only provide image URLs with parent products. If a given image is mapped from a standard ChannelEngine image field, the image is automatically resized to 1,500 x 2,000 px (width x height). If the image is smaller than 1,500 x 2,000 px, ChannelEngine adds whitespace to the image.
  • The following requirements apply:
    • Number of images - About You recommends 1 bust picture, 2-4 model pictures, and 1-2 detail pictures.
    • Bust shot
      • Photographed frontally
      • Transparent or white background
      • Shot on mannequin/bust and exempted
    • Model shot
      • Light gray background (alternatively, white or transparent)
      • 3:4 format at 1,500 x 2,000 px and 96 dpi
      • No cut-off of textile
      • Product in the front, with no extreme cut of the model
    • File format
      • JPEG for images with a white or gray background and a maximum file size of 2 MB.
      • PNG for images with a transparent background and a maximum file size of 4 MB.
    • Background - strong color variations are not allowed.

• Name - the name of the product type. The name must be as specific as possible and cannot include details. E.g.: Lederrock and Blusenkleid are correct, but Calvin Klein Mantel schwarz XS is incorrect. If the product has a specific name, provide the specific name in single quotes (e.g.: Sneaker ‘Stan Smith’). Make sure to follow About You’s requirements for naming your child products, defined per child or automatically inherited from the parent.

Category-specific (conditionally required)

Material composition

Recommended material composition attributes vary per category and are marked as Conditionally required. Failing to map these attributes may cause errors in the Listed products step, blocking product creation or updates.

Material composition attributes consist of a paired set: the material name and the material fraction (percentage). You must map these attributes at the parent level and provide a full material composition as stated on the product label.

Material composition example

When mapping material compositions, follow these guidelines:

• The material attribute must contain the name of the material, and the fraction attribute must contain the percentage of the used material.
• Do not add the percentage sign ( % ) in the fraction value, and make sure that the distribution adds up to 100.
• List materials in descending order, with the largest fraction first.
• A fraction attribute value is required for textile products and optional for non-textile products. For non-textile products, select the material and map ‘100’ for the fraction value.

To see all optional material attributes, go to Advanced settings, Show non-default materials, and select Yes. This adds many optional attributes to Content mappings.

Offer

All products (optional)

• Allow promotion below min price - to allow the promotion price to drop below your product's minimum price, select true. Appears if you use pricing v2.
• Export to (country) - selectively define if you want to export your product content and offers to a specific country (true) or prevent content and offers from being sent to a given country (false).

Carrier

There are no carrier mappings on the About You marketplace. For details on carriers, check out the Shipments section below. 

Pricing

If using pricing v2, in the Pricing step, map:

• Retail price (country) - (required) your selling price.
• Sale price (country) - (optional) must be lower than the Retail price. Map this field to set up a discount. Do not map this attribute if you join a specific campaign on About You. For guidance on managing discounts and promotions on the About You marketplace, check out the next section Working with discounts.

If you use pricing v1, map your retail and sale prices in Mappings, Offer mappings. 

Working with discounts

It is possible to set up a discount on the About You marketplace in two ways:

1. Join an About You-led campaign. Join an About You campaign by directly coordinating with About You. If you join an About You-led campaign, do not map Sale price. 
2. Map your Sale price. ChannelEngine sends this discount price to About You. However, if you join a campaign on About You: 
   • Do not map a value to Sale price. If you do, the campaign might unintentionally reduce your sale price even further. 
   • Do not set up a promotion at Pricing, Promotions. 
   • Only send your regular selling price from ChannelEngine.

Additional information

Orders

All order lines have a quantity of 1.

Shipments

Pre-approved carriers

When you create a shipment, you must use the carrier that About You requires as your shipment method. About You specifies which carrier you should use on a given order in the ShippingMethod field. You do not have to copy the exact spelling of the carrier that About You provides in your shipment method.

Shipping requirements

The following is required on all About You shipments:

• Shipment tracking code
• Return tracking code
• Ship from a European warehouse
• Ship within 24 hours (excluding weekends and public holidays)
• Packing slip in the About You format
• Sticky return label
• Use the carrier selected by About You

Returns

All merchant returns must be shipped with the same carrier that was used for the original order shipment.

A return tracking number is required for every return. Even if the tracking number was already provided for the original shipment, it must be submitted again for the return.

FAQs

If I do not find the answer to my question here, whom should I contact?
First, check About You’s documentation in its Seller Center. For any remaining questions, feel free to contact the ChannelEngine Support team.

How often does each task run on About You?
Tasks run according to the following schedule on About You:

Why are my images not visible on my listing?
About You has specific requirements around its images, especially its model images. Reach out directly to About You when you plan to update existing model images. And, in general, if the product images are not updating, whether they are main images or model images, reach out first to About You to investigate the reason.

My products are in the ‘Pending active’ column. Should I publish them manually?
No, ChannelEngine will automatically publish these products.

Which materials have to be mapped for category X?
Materials that must be mapped for a certain category are labeled as conditionally required in Content mappings.

Why was my product sold at a lower price on the order line than the price at which I listed the product?
About You sometimes provides discounts to consumers. Sellers are compensated in full for this discount. Find all relevant details for these discounts in About You’s settlement files.

Can ChannelEngine import settlement files from the About You marketplace?
No.

How can I delete products on About You?
You cannot delete products on About You via ChannelEngine. However, if your product is taken out of your product selection on the channel, the stock for that product is set to zero. If a product has zero stock, it is taken offline from About You. After a month or so, About You takes care of the soft deletion.

Can I add a variation to an existing product family?
Yes. Before adding a new product, make sure it is set up with a grandparent-parent-child product structure.

I am missing a product size in Content mappings. How can I request it?
To request a new product size, contact About You's Seller Center Service Desk.