ChannelEngine: what is the difference between content and offers?

About this article

This article describes the differences between content and offers on ChannelEngine.

Table of contents

Introduction

Offers

Content

Introduction

The main difference between offers and content is that offers relate to the price and stock attached to an existing product, while content is the information used to either create or update a product on a channel.

Offers

The following example illustrates the way offers work on ChannelEngine.

A merchant wants to sell a table lamp that is already available on bol, with the EAN 1234567890123. They include this product in the selection filter for bol – mapping their desired price and shipping time. The stock is automatically added by ChannelEngine and an offer is submitted to bol, linking the existing table lamp to the merchant's price and delivery time. No other information is required, as the product already exists on the channel.

If that table lamp already had four different sellers, the merchant in this example is added to it – so there are now five in total. This is how it works on channels with a centralized product information database, such as Amazon, Blokker, bol, Cdiscount, etc. Channels without a centralized product database, such as eBay, Wish, and Spartoo, offers are still used to update the price and stock of products, but products are not created until the product data is exported with all relevant information.

Typical offer attributes

• Price before (re)price rules
• Catalog price/MSRP
• Shipping time
• Shipping costs
• Type of fulfillment
• Condition
• Search terms/bullet points (Amazon)
• Stock (added automatically by ChannelEngine, subtracting any pending orders from your submitted stock)

Content

Content is the information that describes the product. If a product does not exist yet, or has invalid or incomplete product information, you can export this information. Make sure your product information is neutral and generic. If you include seller-specific information, such as the return policy under the description or title, channels can refuse your content.

Typical content attributes

• Product name/title
• Description
• Product image
• GTIN
• Merchant product number/SKU
• Color
• Size
• Category
• Brand