Åhléns: marketplace guide
About this guide
This is a ChannelEngine guide on the Stockholm-based marketplace Åhléns. Here you can find information on how to request an Åhléns account, how to configure this marketplace on ChannelEngine, what the specific requirements are, and more.
Table of contents
Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions
Commercial information
| Founded | 1899 |
| Founders | Johan Petter Åhlén and Erik Holm |
| Headquarters | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Area served (orders) | Sweden |
| Revenue | circa USD 76 million (2020) |
| Number of monthly visits | circa 2 million |
| Website | Åhléns |
| Setup cost | none |
| Commission | 25% |
| Other costs | SEK 500/month |
| Payment | monthly, on the 25th (for all orders made 21-42 days earlier) |
| Product categories | beauty, home, fashion |
| Input language | Swedish description, with all another attributes are in English |
| Input currency | SEK |
| Content creation | yes |
| Profile on ChannelEngine | Åhléns |
How to request an account
To start selling on Åhléns, send an email directly to key account manager Mimmi Sandell with a short description of your brand and a link to your website.
The following requirements apply:
- You must have a Mirakl Connect account.
- You must be able to ship your products within the 6-day timeframe.
- You must be able to provide square-shaped product images.
Associated costs
Åhléns does not charge a registration fee, but it does charge a commission of 25% on every sale (which is negotiable, based on your product and brand portfolios) and a monthly fee of SEK 500.
Marketplace features
| Supported | Not supported |
| Product offers (EAN matching) | Returns (marketplace) |
| Product content | Marketplace fulfillment service |
| Orders | Repricing |
| Cancelations (merchant) | Automatic relationships |
| Returns/refunds (merchant) | HTML formatting |
| Shipments | Sales channels* |
| Product variations (sizes/colors) | |
| Carrier mapping | |
| Multiple stock locations |
* 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 marketplace on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, once you add the marketplace:
- Go through the Setup.
- Create a Product selection.
- Complete the Categorization.
- Set up the Mappings: content, offers, and carriers.
- Configure the Pricing: rules and currency conversion.
- Finish the Activation.
- Check the Listed products overview.
Channel-specific requirements and exceptions
Setup
On ChannelEngine
Åhléns is a Mirakl-based channel, so you can connect it to ChannelEngine using a Mirakl Connect SSO account. For more information on this, check out the Mirakl-based channels: SSO authorization article.
You can leave the Mirakl seller name field empty, as Åhléns does not support repricing.
Invoice uploads
To configure your invoice settings, click Advanced settings. You can then 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.
- Merchant invoices (optional) - when ChannelEngine receives a shipment, it exports it – even if there is no invoice attached to it.
- Merchant invoices (required) - when ChannelEngine receives a shipment, it only exports it if an invoice is attached to it. If not, you receive a notification.
- None - when ChannelEngine receives a shipment, it takes no action other than notifying you that no invoice is present.
If you select one of the Merchant invoices options, make sure to enable the invoice upload to ChannelEngine via the Merchant API. For that, call the POST /v2/orders/{merchantOrderNo}/invoice endpoint. Note that only invoices in PDF are supported.
Invalid XML characters
To remove invalid XML characters from your product data, click Advanced settings and enable the Check and filter invalid XML characters setting. ChannelEngine checks product data submitted in the XML format for invalid characters (e.g.: Ã, ¢, â, etc.). Once identified, invalid characters are removed or converted to a valid equivalent.
Categorization
Categorization is mandatory if you want to create or update existing product information on Åhléns. Both categorizations and mappings only result in updates if the content connection is enabled, and the relevant credentials have been entered (see the Setup section).
Although product descriptions must be in Swedish on Åhléns, the categorization and mappings are in English.
Mappings
Content
- Brand - the brand of the product, must to be mapped to Åhléns' specific values. If your brand does not appear on the list or if its design and/or spelling are incorrect, please contact Åhléns. ChannelEngine imports the latest data model containing the brands once a month, but at times a manual import is needed.
- Front image - the main image of the product. All images must be squared, with a resolution of 1,000x1,000 px, and a minimum of 300 dpi. Additionally, the URLs must start with either http:// or https://.
- Gender - the target gender of the product. The options are: male, female, unisex, and not applicable.
- GTIN 13 - the 13-digit EAN/GTIN of the product.
- Material percentage 1 - the proportion of the main material in the product. E.g.: if the product consists of 80% cotton and 20% polyester, Material percentage 1 is 80 and Product material 1 is cotton.
- Product material 1 - the main material in the product. E.g.: if the product consists of 80% cotton and 20% polyester, Material percentage 1 is 80 and Product material 1 is cotton.
- Product name - the title of the product, written in English.
- Product SKU - your internal variant identifier. Usually your Merchant product number on ChannelEngine. E.g.: ABC123-Yellow-Medium.
- Size - the size of the product. Must to be mapped to Åhléns' specific values.
- Standard color - the standardized color of the product, used as a color filter on Åhléns. E.g.: red, green, blue, multicolor, etc.
Offer
The only mandatory offer mapping is Price, which is your desired sale price.
The following offer attributes are common to some Mirakl-based marketplaces, particularly in France and Germany:
- ECO #1-5 - Amount - the amount due for the eco-contribution related to the product. E.g.: 2.50.
- ECO #1-5 - EPR category code - the extended producer responsibility (EPR) code that applies to the product. For a list of category codes, check out the article Providing data to comply with circular economy regulations in Mirakl's help center (note that you need to be logged in to Mirakl to access this page). E.g.: DE-WEEE, FR-DEA, etc.
- ECO #1-5 - Producer ID - your producer ID, received upon registering with a packaging register, such as Germany's LUCID. The maximum number of characters is 255.
The following offer attributes are common to Mirakl-based marketplaces:
- Leadtime to shipment - the number of days before you ship the product. By default, this is set to two. You can create your own unique rules, if applicable. For more information on this, check out the article Lead time to ship in Mirakl's help center.
- Minimum quantity alert - map this attribute to receive a notification from Mirakl if your stock drops below the threshold defined.
- Offer state - the product's condition. Find your option from the dropdown menu by selecting the fixed value to apply to all.
- Product tax code - the taxation code applicable to the product.
- Logistic class - your optional shipping class. Make sure to map it using the marketplace’s codes, not the labels visible in the front-end. These codes vary per marketplace. If this marketplace makes uses of logistic class codes, they can be found below.
| Code | Label | Description |
| S | Standard | Non-bulky items that can be sent to a pick-up point |
| XL | Home Delivery (Bulky) | Bulky items that have to be delivered to customers home |
Working with discounts
- Do not leave the Discount end date attribute unmapped. If you want to set a permanent discount, use a date in the far future instead. Otherwise the offer is not exported, and errors are shown under the Validation and feedback tab.
- If your discounted price is not lower than the base price, it is not exported.
- The Discount quantity threshold must be set to a value higher than 1, otherwise it is not exported.
Carrier
Carrier mapping is not required on Åhléns. However, you can map your carrier to a specific list of carriers maintained by Åhléns. This allows for working tracking codes in the back-end, as well as for the buyer. If your default carrier is missing, please contact Åhléns.
Pricing
Åhléns requires the prices to be submitted in Swedish krona (SEK). If you do not have pricing attributes in SEK, you need to set a currency conversion.
Listed products
If you have problems with products not appearing on Mirakl-based marketplaces – especially if you are trying to create products – check the Listed products page for more information.
You can either filter on Channel status (select Invalid to show all products that ChannelEngine has not exported, such as products with an empty GTIN or that currently do not exist on the marketplace) or use the Validation and feedback tab to see all known errors for specific products.
For detailed status reports, go to the Mirakl back-end. Their reports contain specific errors if a product or product offer cannot be created. To find them, go to My inventory, Import from file, Track offer imports/Track product imports. By hovering over the 'i' under the Status section, you can see how many products in the file were processed correctly and how many had errors, etc.
If there are errors, the last column shows a downloadable file in which they are listed. The same goes for the product file import, but this can contain multiple files because processing goes through several systems. There is also a manual check of your submitted content, which, once approved, goes to staging as well. Note that you need to map as much as possible to prevent products from not being created.
FAQs
How often does each task run on Mirakl-based marketplaces?
By default, Mirakl-based marketplaces follow the schedule below:
| Task | Frequency |
| Export product data to channel | every 60 minutes |
| Export product offers to channel | every 15 minutes |
| Import product offers from channel | every 15 minutes |
| Import orders from channel | every 15 minutes |
| Export order shipments to channel | every 15 minutes |
| Export returns to channel | every 30 minutes |
Can I simultaneously set up mapping on ChannelEngine and in the Mirakl back-end?
Configuring mapping in the Mirakl marketplace back-end interferes with ChannelEngine's content export. For accurate product content export, stick to categorizing and mapping your products’ content on ChannelEngine only.
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