bol: marketplace guide

About this guide

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

Table of contents

About this channel

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Pricing
• Listed products

Additional information

FAQs

About this channel

This channel offers a 3P marketplace model to sellers. If you are a direct bol supplier (1P), use the bol Suppliers channel plugin.

Commercial information

How to request an account

To start selling on bol, you must create a business account. More information on creating a business account can be found on Zakelijk account (in Dutch). If you are an international merchant, you can use the simplified onboarding process.

Merchants from the Netherlands and Belgium are required to register with the local chamber of commerce (Kamer van Koophandel in the Netherlands and Handelsregister in Belgium).

Merchants from other EU countries that work with ChannelEngine might be exempt from certain requirements, such as having a Dutch or Belgian entity. These merchants can ship from another EU country. To check if you qualify for this exemption, reach out to your customer success manager or the Sales team at ChannelEngine.

The following requirements are also important to note:

• Your products must fit into the categories bol works with.
• Your products must have an EAN (GTIN) or ISBN number.
• You must be able to deliver products between 1 and 8 working days.
• Customers should be able to return a product within 14 days.
• You must be able to answer customers' queries within 24 hours.
• You must meet the service standards that bol requires.

Further details on the requirements set by bol can be found in the Everything you need to know to successfully sell on bol article.

Associated costs

bol does not charge a monthly fee, but it does charge a fixed commission amount and a percentage of the sale price. For more details on bol's commission structure, check out the Commission rates page on bol's partner platform.

Marketplace features

1. bol supports split order lines for shipments, but not for cancelations. You can ship multiple units of the same product in separate shipments. However, if you cancel, you must cancel the entire order line. E.g.: if a customer orders three identical products, you can ship them in two or three different shipments, but you must cancel all three products together.
2. bol places a 48-hour embargo on merchant returns after the shipment is created. Merchants should not create a merchant return within 48 hours after creating a shipment. 
3. bol supports the creation of product variations, but this is not done automatically – as it is the case on marketplaces such as Amazon. For more information on how to create product variations on bol, check out the article bol: how to group product variations.
4. For information on bol's last-mile delivery service, check out bol: verzenden via bol (Vvb).

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 bol

Once a seller account is active, the required information that ChannelEngine needs can be found in your bol account. The steps below are needed for API authentication, using OAuth. 

On ChannelEngine

1. Go to your bol instance on ChannelEngine.

Open the Setup page.

3. Click Authorize.

4. Log in to your bol account. if you have multiple accounts, make sure to use the correct credentials for the account you are setting up with ChannelEngine now. If you accidentally (re-)authorize the same account for multiple bol instances, you receive duplicate orders.

5. Click the blue Toestaan (Allow) button to connect your bol account with ChannelEngine.

6. Once this is done, the previously orange Authorize button becomes green and changes to Reauthorize.

On bol

1. If you wish to verify that ChannelEngine has OAuth access to your bol account (and to which one), log in to your bol account.

2. Once logged in, go to Settings by clicking your account name in the top right corner, Instellingen (Services).

3. Click API instellingen (API settings) under the Diensten (Services) section.

4. Scroll down to the Authorized parties section. Make sure that ChannelEngine is on the list of authorized parties.

5. If you have not added information regarding the technical contact and have not agreed to the bol API terms of service yet, you can do so now. As ChannelEngine is likely to be the technical contact regarding the API connection, you can add ChannelEngine's details to it and agree to the API terms of service.

On ChannelEngine

1. Apart from OAuth, there are no other required settings to export offers and import orders to and from bol.

2. However, if you wish to use options such as repricing and the product data export, the following settings are required:

• Notify overdue orders after x hours - bol automatically cancels orders if they exceed three days after the expected delivery date, so this setting can be used to trigger a notification if x hours since the original expected delivery date have passed, and the order is not yet marked as Shipped. 

  NB: the Notify overdue orders after x hours setting must be enabled in combination with the Orders overdue notification under Notification settings. 
• Only use LVB - enable this if you only want to use the marketplace fulfillment service, no
  fulfillment from your own stock. This setting acts as an override; therefore, the fulfillment type in Offer mapping is ignored.
• bol seller number - your merchant identifier on bol. To use ChannelEngine's repricing functionality on bol, the bol seller number is needed to distinguish yourself from your competitors when retrieving prices.
• Product content languages - choose the languages in which you describe your products. Additional language-specific attributes then appear in the Content mappings for each selected language. To successfully export content to the marketplace, ensure all required fields for the selected languages are populated.
• Import promotions - enable this to activate the daily import of bol promotions associated with campaigns. 

Advanced settings

• Disable stock reservations by bol - overrides bol's stock reservation feature.
• Enable the import of tracking codes in fulfillment orders - imports tracking codes from LVB orders shipped after the enabling of this setting. Note that this may slow down your order overview.
• Enable refurbished offer flow - enables you to send or block sending offers on refurbished products to bol. For more guidance, check out bol: refurbished products.

Invoice uploads

To configure your invoice settings, click the dropdown menu Enable invoice uploading, which contains the following options:

• ChannelEngine invoices - when ChannelEngine receives a shipment, it automatically generates an invoice and attaches it to the shipment before exporting it. To make use of this option, make sure you set up the correct VAT calculation and automated VAT invoices on ChannelEngine.
• Merchant invoices - when ChannelEngine receives a shipment, it exports it with an invoice attached by you. You can upload invoices to ChannelEngine either via the Merchant API or the web interface. To learn more, refer to the article ChannelEngine: merchant invoices.
• None - when ChannelEngine receives a shipment, it takes no action other than notifying you that no invoice is present.

Categorization

Categorization is only mandatory if you want to create or update existing product information on bol. Both categorization and mapping only result in updates if the content connection is enabled, and the relevant credentials have been entered (see the Setup section).

These product types are not quite generic. Once you reach the Content mapping section for each product type, you can specify the exact category. E.g.: under Categorization, an item can be mapped as a travel suitcase (reiskoffer), and under Content mappings, it is mapped as a trolley briefcase.

Import categories from bol

If some of the products that you already list on bol have assigned categories, import these categories directly into ChannelEngine. Directly importing assigned categories from bol reduces manual work, improves accuracy, and helps prevent errors caused by category mismatches between ChannelEngine and bol.

To import your categories from bol:

1. Go to the Categorization step.
2. Open the Product to category tab.
   
3. Click Load categories from channel. ChannelEngine uses attribute values stored in its database (originally sourced from bol) to match products to categories.
4. The imported categories appear as suggestions, which you review and choose to either accept or reject.

Mappings

Content

All products (required)

• Export content - choose which product data you want to export to bol. You can select from the following export strategies:

  • Create & Update - EAN + Category - export only your product's EAN (GTIN) and category. This option works best if you manage product content directly on bol's platform but use ChannelEngine for offer exports. At a minimum, the EAN (GTIN) and category are required to successfully create and update offers on bol.
  • Create & Update - EAN + Category + Mapped - export only the attributes that you mapped, along with the product's EAN and category. Use this option if you want to overwrite a select set of content attributes and let other sellers enrich the remaining content. E.g.: you mapped Productnaam to overwrite an old title entered by a different party, but the rest of the content stays the same.
  • Create & Update - Full - export all of your product content to bol, including EAN (GTIN), category, and all other mapped attributes. This option is ideal if you manage both product content and offers through ChannelEngine for bol. Before you set this option, ensure that you map all required attributes.
  • None - do not export product content to bol. Choose this option to keep the product excluded from exports to bol, and manage the product's content solely within ChannelEngine.
  NB: the default export strategy is Create and update (full), even if the Export content attribute is left unmapped.
• Beschrijving (Description) - the description of your product. This attribute supports the following HTML tags: h, strong, ul, ol, li, p, and br.
• Elektronisch adres fabrikant (manufacturer digital address) - for GPSR compliance, the manufacturer’s email address or URL of the manufacturer’s online contact form.
• Fabrikant Adres (manufacturer address) - for GPSR compliance, the manufacturer’s physical address or, minimally, a telephone number.
• Fabrikant Naam (manufacturer name) - for GPSR compliance, the name of the manufacturer.
• Interne referentie (Internal reference) - the reference ID of your product. This is different from the reference used for your offers (i.e.: the Merchant product number) and has no real added value, though bol requires it.
• Productnaam (Product name) - the name/title of your product.

Conditionally required

A conditionally required attribute is required when a specific condition is met – e.g.: when a certain value is mapped in a different attribute.

E.g.: the Inclusief armleuning (Including armrest) attribute becomes required when Type bureaustoel (Office chair type) is set to either 'Gamingstoel' or 'Bureaustoel'.

If a conditionally required attribute is not mapped, an error may appear on the Listed products page, preventing a product from being created or updated. Therefore, to reduce the risk of errors, we recommend mapping as many conditionally required attributes for the category as possible.

Currently, conditionally required attributes are only shown for bol – they are not yet displayed for other marketplaces.

All products (optional)

• Productvariant ID (product variant ID) - a unique identifier (often a family key like item_group_id or parent_sku) used to group product variants, e.g.: different sizes/colors, into a single product family/listing on bol.com.
• Verpakking breedte (package width) - the numerical value for the width of the product's retail/consumer packaging, e.g.: 50, excluding the unit.
• Verpakking breedte (eenheid) (package width (unit)) - the unit of measurement for the package width, e.g.: cm or mm.
• Verpakking hoogte (package height) - the numerical value for the height of the product's retail/consumer packaging, e.g.: 200, excluding the unit.
• Verpakking hoogte (eenheid) (package height (unit)) - the unit of measurement for the package height, e.g.: cm or mm.
• Verpakking lengte (package length) - the numerical value for the length of the product's retail/consumer packaging, e.g.: 50, excluding the unit.
• Verpakking lengte (eenheid) (package length (unit)) - the unit of measurement for the package length, e.g.: cm or mm.
• Verpakkingsgewicht (package weight) - the numerical value for the gross weight of the product's retail/consumer packaging (including contents), excluding the unit (typically in kg or g).
• Verpakkingsgewicht (eenheid) (package weight (unit)) - the unit of measurement for the package weight, e.g.: kg or g.
• Video/Vidéo (Video) - the URL of the product's video, if available. YouTube videos and YouTube embed code are not supported. The minimum and maximum file sizes allowed are 1 MB and 1 GB, respectively, and the following formats are supported: MKV, MP4, FLV, AVI, MPG, MPEG, MOV, WMV, WEBM.

Category-specfic 

You must also map relevant attributes per product category. 

• Afbeelding 1-15 Label (Image label 1-15) - the label for your product images. By assigning a label to an image, you can specify a view of the product. E.g.: Afbeelding 1 Label: Vooraanzicht/Image 1 Label: front view. Note that:
  • Not every category supports every label.
  • If you leave a label unmapped, bol automatically marks it as ADDITIONAL.
  • Images with the label ADDITIONAL are organized automatically by bol: position 1 - primary image; position 2 - additional image; and position 3 - additional image.
  • Labels are not visible in bol's front-end, but they are visible and verifiable in bol's back-end.
  • If you map a fixed value for a label (e.g.: voorkant), make sure that the value applies to the related image for all products in that category.

• Afbeelding 1-15 URL (Images 1-15) - your product image URLs. Note that there are image requirements (in Dutch) in terms of the size and background:

  • The file size is at least 30 KB and at most 10 MB.
  • The image must have a minimum of 500×500 px and a maximum of 6,000×6,000 pixels. White spaces in images do not count toward the minimum and maximum resolutions.
  • The zoom function, which makes details of an article visible, works on images with a minimum size of 1,200×1,200 px.
  • For every image mapped, you must also map the corresponding label to indicate the view or angle displayed. E.g.: vooraanzicht (front view), in situatie (in situation), etc.  
  NB: by adding an underscore followed by a number to your image files, starting with 1, you can set the order in which they are displayed on the product page. E.g.: Image_1.jpg, Image_2.jpg, Image_3.jpg, etc.
• CE markering - state here whether the CE marking is clearly visible (zichtbaar, in Dutch) on the product itself or if it does not apply (niet van toepassing, in Dutch). If it is visible, you need to map the CE document markering PDF attribute with the URL of a PDF or image showing the CE marking on the product. Failing to correctly indicate if the marking is visible when it is not, or vice versa, may result in penalties based on bol's 100-point system.

• CE document markering PDF - the URL to the CE marking image of your product. This attribute is required for products that contain a CE marking. You must provide the URL of a PDF or an image of the CE marking on the product, on the packaging, or on an accompanying document. By affixing the CE marking to a product, a manufacturer declares that the product meets all the legal requirements for CE marking. Refer to the CE-markering toevoegen aan productinformatie article on bol for more details on the CE label photo requirements.

  NB: although bol supports images as well as PDFs when it comes to the CE marking, the quality of images is generally lower – which is not ideal for prospective buyers. Therefore, using PDFs is highly recommended.
• Energielabel PDF/Score énergétique PDF (Energy label PDF) - the product's energy label, in PDF.
• Energielabel 2021 PDF/Score énergétique PDF (Energy label 2021 PDF) - the product's 2021 energy label, in PDF. For more information on the difference between the two standards, check out the article Het nieuwe energielabel 2021(in Dutch) on bol's website.
• Handleiding PDF/Manuel PDF (Manual PDF) - the product's manual, in PDF.
• Bijsluiter PDF/Notice PDF (Prescription PDF) - the product's insert, in PDF.
• Voorvertoning PDF/Prévisualisation PDF (Preview PDF) - the product's preview, in PDF.

Offer

Required

• Fulfillment override - used to set if the fulfillment of a product is done by bol (LVB), by the merchant or handled automatically. More information on switching fulfillment modes can be found on External fulfillment: FBA, LVB, and FBC.
• Price before (re)price rules - the price used for exporting to bol (regardless of price rules or repricing applied later). This attribute does not appear if you use pricing v2. 
• Shipping time - the shipping time that is exported to bol. Note that bol uses a specific format, so mapping to its expected values is required. The shipping time is set in working days; however, bol displays the delivery time in regular days on its platform. E.g.: a product submitted with a shipping time of '24hours-22' has a delivery time of 1 to 2 days instead of ‘delivered tomorrow’ when displayed on a Saturday. 
  • It is also possible to map this attribute to the value Mijn leverbelofte (My delivery promise), which provides merchants with additional options – and is connected to the setting found on the bol back-end platform. If you have not configured that setting yet, log onto the bol back-end platform and go to Instellingen (Settings), Mijn winkel (My shop), Leverbelofte (Delivery promise).
  • Do not add a price rule that adds the shipping costs to your price. This results in double shipping costs, making your product prices considerably higher.

Optional

• Automatically participate in fee reductions - set to true if you want to automatically participate in fee reductions, as long as your price stays above your minimum price. For more details on fee reductions, check out the Pricing section below. 
• Condition - the state of your product. Unless you sell refurbished or used products, use the default value. Note that the condition, combined with the EAN of an offer, is what makes it unique – and cannot be changed once set for each offer. 
• Shipping costs - (only appears if using pricing v1) bol does not allow separate shipping costs for ordered products. However, you are likely to have shipment costs that are not included in the product price. If you have these set on a specific attribute, you can map them so the shipping costs are added to the exported price. Shipping costs must be added with a dot ( . ) as the decimal separator.
• Economic operator ID - the unique ID of the responsible person from the Economic operators tab; required for products that are sold in the EU. For guidance, check out the section below on Economic operators.
• Quantity discount 1-3 - sets several levels of volume or quantity discount. The minimum quantity is the quantity at which the price per item for that level (which you set in the price field) has to be applied. Bear in mind that the minimum quantity has to increase, and the price per item has to decrease, with each level. More information on how to set these quantity/volume discounts can be found on bol: how to set up volume discounts.
• Refurbished offer margin - set to true to indicate that the selling price includes a margin that accounts for the sales tax/VAT. When enabled, the buyer sees Geen btw kosten (no VAT charged) below the selling price on your listing and will not receive a separate sales tax/VAT line item on the final invoice. For refurbished goods that fall within the margin scheme under the European tax code. 

The following offer attributes may appear on this channel if this channel uses pricing v2:

• Allow promotion below min price - set to true to allow the promotion price to drop below your product's minimum price. To learn more, check out the article ChannelEngine: promotions.
• Allow repricer exclusion rule above max price - set to true to allow the repricer to override your maximum price limit and export a higher price.
• Flip protection time - how long ChannelEngine should keep your price steady after winning the buy box. Use this attribute in combination with the Offensive strategy in repricing. To learn more, check out the article ChannelEngine: repricing v2.
• Repricer strategy - the strategy you want to apply when repricing the product. To learn more, check out the article ChannelEngine: repricing v2.

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

Working with discounts

If your tenant uses pricing v2, the price attributes from Mappings are also located in the 
Pricing step, in Price rules and Promotions, and you must also map them there if you want to send a discount to the channel. To learn more about mapping these price attributes using the pricing v2 feature, check out the articles ChannelEngine: price rules v2 and ChannelEngine: promotions.

To set up strikethrough pricing, some channels require you to map a list price/RRP/MSRP in Mappings. If no list price attribute is available for export to the channel, then you still map your selling price in Pricing. Either the list price or the selling price is considered by the channel for the strikethrough. The channel can ultimately decide when to display strikethrough pricing.

Economic operators

Economic operators are entities required by the Digital Services Act (DSA), e.g.: manufacturers, distributors, or importers of the product. If you sell your products in the EU, you must assign an economic operator ID to each product that you offer in the EU.

Retrieve your economic operators from the marketplace platform:

1. Go to the Economic operators tab. 
2. Click Schedule sync task. 
3. Your responsible person is synced to ChannelEngine and appears as a line item.
4. Copy the ID number from the ID field. 
5. Go to the Offer mappings tab. 
6. Map Economic operator ID attribute to the copied ID.

For details on setting up, retrieving, mapping, and managing your economic operators on ChannelEngine, check out the article ChannelEngine: how to manage economic operators.

Economic operator IDs that are assigned to product offers and are either exported from ChannelEngine or imported from bol are shown in Listed products, Channel offer.  

Carrier

It is mandatory to map carriers before you can activate the bol marketplace and list your products. If you try to activate the channel without completing carrier mapping, you will see the following error message: "The channel could not be activated - Carrier mapping is required." 

bol uses a specific list of carrier names. If you submit an unknown carrier, ChannelEngine automatically converts it to Other – but this is not advised. 

bol has specific names for carriers, which might differ from the ones you expect. E.g.: bol still uses PostNL's old carrier designation (i.e., TNT). To ensure you map the correct carrier, refer to bol's API documentation to see how its specific names correspond to commonly used names.

Pricing

Unlike other channels, bol allows fee reductions. These are possible reductions of the fees paid to bol for every transaction, if your sale price is below a certain threshold. More information on fee reductions can be found on Gebruik verlaagde commissie (in Dutch). 

In Pricing, Fee reductions, ChannelEngine offers an overview of the products that are eligible for fee reductions, their current prices, and the maximum prices to be eligible for the reduction. To learn more about working with fee reductions on bol, check out the articles bol: fee reductions v1 or bol: fee reductions v2, depending on your pricing setup.

If you use pricing v1, do not add a price rule in Pricing, Price rules, that adds the shipping costs to your price. This results in double shipping costs, because Shipping costs is already mapped in Offer mappings.

Listed products

It may take up to two hours for an offer update to appear on the Listed products page. If the orange warning triangle is still visible, the data is older than the latest export, so it does not necessarily reflect the current status on bol.

Price star rating system

You can compare your selling prices with the prices that other merchants charge using bol's prijssterren (price star) rating. To see your products' prijssterren, click the Offer tab on the Listed products page and check the Price column. A rating of four stars is considered good by bol’s standards, with five stars guaranteeing that your price is the most competitive among your main competitors. For more information on bol's prijssterren, check out the article Prijs bepalen on bol's partner platform.

Below you can find an overview of the price star system:

Additional information

Logistiek via bol (LVB)

bol can store your products in its warehouse and handle the logistics of the delivery. ChannelEngine supports the creation and pre-registration of fulfillment shipments. Further details on bol's fulfillment service can be found on the bol: LVB fulfillment shipments article and on Logistiek via bol (in Dutch). 

In Products, Fulfillment shipments, you can (pre-)register a shipment of items to be stored in bol's warehouse and sold as LVB. Orders below a certain value threshold include a shipping fee (in Dutch) when fulfilled via LVB.

Merkregistratie (Brand registration)

bol supports the registration of brands by selected brand owners and official distributors. By registering for this service, you can ensure that all information tied to products under your brand is consistent across bol – including product images.

For more information on brand registration, check out bol's Merkregistratie (Brand registration) page.

Product variations

If you wish to group certain products together (so that the other variations can be selected from the same product page), bol requires the variations to be marked in the same product family. bol does not offer a completely automated option for this; however, you can create product families in a few easy steps on bol's back-end platform.

For guidance on how to work with product families, check out bol: how to group product variations.

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

Order line extra data

Any applied discounts are also sent with the applicable item on the order.

* Conditional fields only display if the channel provided a value.

Shipments

If your carrier is not listed, use Other as the shipment method. The tracking code is mandatory for almost all carrier tags, with the exception of Briefpost.

FAQs

I have a single bol account for Belgium and the Netherlands. How do I connect to both countries on ChannelEngine?
bol supports both individual and combined accounts for Belgium and the Netherlands. If you have a combined account, make sure to add only one bol channel for those two countries. The same offer is exported to both countries. Note that you need to set up your bol account in their back-end to handle that.

If you want to export separate offers per country, you need to request a second account with bol. Make sure to use the correct credentials for the account you are setting up with ChannelEngine. If you fill out the same credentials for more than one bol channel, they all retrieve the same open orders – resulting in duplicate orders.

While attempting to update my image labels, I received the error "The file is not processed, you've already provided it recently. If the source file is updated, please provide a new URL.". What does it mean?
bol groups updates to image URLs and image labels together, which are limited to one update every 48 hours. If you change an image label without changing the related image's URL, bol ignores both the label and the image updates. However, all other content of the product is updated accordingly.

My bol access token has expired. What do I do?
All bol authorization tokens expire within one year. If your token has expired, you can renew it in ChannelEngine by following these steps: 

1. Go to the Setup page of your bol marketplace.
2. Copy your refresh token.
3. Go to jwt.io (JSON web tokens).
4. Paste the token in the Encoded field.
5. Hover your cursor over the Exp part of the payload data section on the right-hand side.
6. If you see a date in the near future, you need to reauthorize the marketplace via the bol Setup page on ChannelEngine.
7. Once authorized, a 2024 date replaces the previous date.

I cannot delete or replace my product images via the API. What can I do?
Deleting or replacing product images via the API is not possible due to the limitations of bol's API. If you attempt to replace image URLs with new URLs, new images are added, and the previous images remain instead of being deleted. To delete images, you need to manually delete them in your seller account.

My product is listed under the wrong category on bol, even though it is correct on ChannelEngine. What should I do?
ChannelEngine sends the correct category to bol. The issue, therefore, is on bol's side. To resolve this and make sure your product appears in the right category, file a content dispute on bol's partner platform.