Allegro: marketplace guide

About this guide

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

Table of contents

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Sales channels
• Product selection
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Pricing
• Listed products

Additional information
FAQs

Commercial information

Founder	Arjan Bakker
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Poznan, Poland
Active markets	all EU countries, except for Cyprus and Malta*
Number of monthly visitors	circa 22 million
Website	Allegro
Setup cost	none
Commission	a percentage based on the product category
Other costs	a listing fee applies to some categories
Payment	EEA sellers: twice a month, on the 1st and 14th of each month
Product categories	electronics, fashion, home and garden, children, beauty, health, sports, tourism, moto, office, etc.
Input language (title + description)	Polish
Input currency	PLN
Content creation	yes
Profile on ChannelEngine	Allegro

* Allegro excludes places that are difficult to reach for couriers, such as high mountain ranges or islands. Postal codes for those places are blocked. This means that buyers are not able to place an order for those postal codes, and merchants cannot send packages there. For more information on this, refer to the How to ship abroad with Allegro article in Allegro's help center.

How to request an account

Allegro is mostly focused on Poland. Therefore, most of the related communication, information, and help articles are in Polish. If you do not have a basic grasp of Polish or do not have a browser capable of auto-translating webpages (e.g.: Google Chrome), you may have a hard time managing Allegro and sales originating from it. Furthermore, similar to eBay, Allegro is originally an auction website, so its setup and pricing models are in line with this.

To create a seller account (firma) on Allegro, follow these steps:

1. Go to Allegro's registration page (select English version at the top right corner). Choose a company account when filling in the form.

2. Follow the activation steps as described in the email sent by Allegro.

3. Go to the My Account tab and fill in all required fields (including uploading all required documents). More information on the required documents can be found on Registration - European Economic Area.

A more detailed registration process can be found on the following websites:

• Registration for sellers from the European Economic Area
• Registration for sellers outside the European Economic Area

The following requirements apply to sellers on Allegro:

• You must comply with Allegro's terms and conditions.
• You should have a local registered return address.
• You should be able to provide customer support in Polish.
• You should be able to provide free shipping.
• You should consider that all payments on Allegro are in PLN. However, you do not need a local bank account.

Associated costs

Allegro has no setup or monthly subscription costs. However, there is a commission that varies based on the product category. You can find more information on the applicable fees in Allegro's Terms & Conditions - Appendix no. 4.

Note that for some categories listing fees also apply – including car advertisements, live animals, antiques and arts, and tickets. If you sell products in those categories, you are also charged for each product offer created.

Marketplace features

Supported	Not supported
Product content1	Returns (merchant)
Product offers (GTIN matching)	Repricing
Orders	Cancelations (marketplace)2
Shipments
Carrier mapping
Cancelations (merchant)
Returns (marketplace)
HTML formatting
Marketplace fulfillment service
Sales channels3

1. Content updates are submitted as proposals, which Allegro can either accept or reject.

2. ChannelEngine does not import orders that are still awaiting payment, only paid orders. Once an order has been retrieved by ChannelEngine, the customer can no longer cancel it. However, they can still request a return.

3. Additional sales channels, such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic, are supported. You can add them by either using a single connection for all your sales channels or connecting a separate instance to each of your Allegro accounts. Check out the Sales channels section for more.

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 Allegro (names are translated by Google from Polish to English)

1. Add your warranty policy under Sales settings (Ustawienia sprzedazy), Warranty information (Informacje o gwarancjach).
2. Add your return policy under Sales settings, Return conditions pick-up (Warunki zwrotów).
3. Add at least one delivery price list (shipping costs) under Sales settings, Delivery settings (Ustawienia dostawy). The IDs of these delivery price lists can be used during the channel mapping.
4. Add your terms of complaints policy. Use the name of this terms of complaints policy during the All products content mapping stage (Implied warranty name) on ChannelEngine.

On ChannelEngine

1. Go to your Allegro marketplace on ChannelEngine and open the Setup page.

2. Click Authorize. A pop-up appears, requesting your permission to link your Allegro account to ChannelEngine. Click the Link account (Powiaz konto) button to proceed.

3. The system may prompt you to log in to your Allegro seller account to accept ChannelEngine's request. Confirm it and return to ChannelEngine. A green Authorized label should be visible now.

4. Select the country where your warehouse is located in the Ships from field. Indicate the province, city, and postal code. Note that province and postal code are only required if your warehouse is in Poland.

Advanced settings

• No spaces in order extra data - if enabled, ChannelEngine replaces spaces in the names of order and order line extra data fields with underscores. Enable this option if your connected system does not support spaces in field names, and this prevents orders from being imported.

Sales channels

There are two ways to connect additional sales channels on Allegro.

Single connection

To sell across multiple sales channels from a single connection on ChannelEngine, add Allegro to your environment on ChannelEngine and authorize your account. The sales channel you choose on the Setup page is considered your primary marketplace (e.g.: Poland).

To enable additional sales channels, make sure to map Additional marketplace and Additional marketplace price attributes in Offer mappings. ChannelEngine then exports your product content and offers to Allegro, and Allegro translates the content into the appropriate languages.

Multiple connections

To sell across multiple sales channels from multiple connections on ChannelEngine, add one instance of Allegro per sales channel to your environment and authorize each one with a different account. The sales channel you choose on the Setup page must correspond to the account.

Each sales channel requires product content and offers to be submitted in the respective language and currency. E.g.: the Polish account requires content to be in Polish and prices to be in złoty.

Product selection

Allegro does not support stock updates to zero. Therefore, ChannelEngine deactivates products with stock equal to zero on Allegro, even if those are included in the product selection.

Categorization

Categorization is mandatory on Allegro. Allegro also offers a category tree in English, which is the one visible on ChannelEngine. You can map to English categories, and Allegro converts them into the original Polish categories on their end.

Mappings

Content

Although Allegro supports offer matching based on GTIN, content mapping is obligatory.

All products (required)

• Export content strategy - the content export strategy per product. As required by Allegro, ChannelEngine exports content updates together with offer exports. Therefore, you can choose which attributes (if any) you intend to update. The options are:
  • None - disables all content export to Allegro.
  • Create only - creates new products without updating existing content.
  • Create and update title - creates new products and updates the titles of existing products.
  • Create and update title, description, and images - creates new products and updates the titles, descriptions, and images of existing products.
  • Create and update full - creates new products and updates the entire product content of existing products.
  NB: if no option is selected, ChannelEngine defaults to Create only for your content export.
  
• GTIN - the product's unique identifier, such as its EAN.
• Name - the main title of your product in Polish. The maximum number of characters is 75.

Optional (all products)

• Extra image link 1-9 - do not add new image links here, but leave the extra image link attributes set to the default ChannelEngine image attributes. ChannelEngine automatically resizes the images to the required format. Super Sellers on Allegro can add up to 16 extra image links.
• Image link - do not add new image links here, but leave the image link attributes set to the default ChannelEngine image attributes. ChannelEngine automatically resizes the images to the required format.
• Rich description row 1-20 column 1-2 - these attributes allow you to create descriptions in rich text format. There are 20 rows available, and each row can have one or two columns. If a column or row is left unmapped, it is left out of the description. Each column can contain either an image URL or HTML text. Note that unsupported characters are stripped out prior to the content export.

Offer

Required

• Handling time - the number of days required to process the order (i.e.: the time between receiving the order and shipping it to the buyer), excluding the actual shipping time by your carrier. The options are: immediately (same day), 24 hours (next day), 2 days, etc.
• Implied warranty name - the exact name of your terms of complaints policy on Allegro.
• Invoice setting - the product's invoice policy. Note that the value you set here is shown to customers on the product page. E.g.: no invoice, VAT, without VAT, etc.
• Price - the product's price in the currency of your primary marketplace. I.e.: PLN for Poland, EUR for Slovakia, and CZK for the Czech Republic. Note that Allegro Czech Republic only accepts prices that are either whole numbers or end with .00 (e.g.: 50 or 50.00).
• Return policy name - the exact name of your return policy on Allegro.
• Shipping rate name - the exact name of your shipping policy on Allegro. This is also where you set the shipping time.

Optional

• Additional marketplace 1-3 - the name of the additional sales channel on Allegro. Only map this if you use one connection to manage multiple Allegro accounts.
  
• Additional marketplace price 1-3 - the price for the additional sales channel on Allegro. Only map this if you use one connection to manage multiple Allegro accounts. Note that Allegro Czech Republic only accepts prices that are either whole numbers or end with .00 (e.g.: 50 or 50.00).
• Allegro product ID - the product's unique identifier on Allegro. Only map this attribute if you receive a validation error on the Listed products page stating that ChannelEngine cannot match your product offer based on the GTIN.
• Apply for badge campaign - select Yes to apply for the badge campaign, select No to remove it from the campaign. Note that campaigns come with additional costs.
• Badge campaigns - mandatory when Apply for badge campaign is enabled. Select the campaign from the current campaigns list. The campaign name contains an addition in brackets to mark the type of campaign. The following campaigns are available:
  • Standard - adds a badge (e.g.: hit or new) on the list of offers.
  • Discount - changes the offer price. Marks the new price in red and crosses out the old price.
• Campaign bargain price - add a discount price. This attribute is required only when the Apply for badge campaign attribute is enabled and the Badge campaign attribute is set to Discount or Sourcing. Note that the discount price must be lower than the price.
• Campaign purchase limit - the optional attribute that you can use to enter the maximum number of items each user can buy when it is part of the campaign. You can only use this attribute for Discount and Sourcing campaigns. Note that badges set up on ChannelEngine may not work if your articles already have a badge assigned by Allegro (e.g.: lowest price in the market).
• Warranty name - the exact name of your warrant policy on Allegro.
• Wholesale price list name - the exact name of your quantity discount set up on Allegro. If mapped, the related quantity discount is applied to the product.

Carrier

Carrier mapping is required on Allegro. Allegro uses a standard list of accepted carriers. If your carrier is not listed, map its name to Other.

Note that the carrier method is submitted as order extra data on Allegro.

Pricing

Allegro requires prices to be submitted in the currency of the sales channel – PLN for Poland, EUR for Slovakia, and CZK for the Czech Republic. If you do not have pricing attributes in the respective currencies, you need to set a currency conversion. After doing this, you can go to Content mappings and map the correct output to the price attribute.

Additionally, prices in CZK must either be set without decimals (e.g.: 50) or with zeros as decimals (50.00). Otherwise, the offer export is blocked.

Listed products

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

You can either filter based on the Channel status (e.g.: Invalid for all products that ChannelEngine has not exported, such as products with an empty EAN) or use Validation and feedback to see all known validation/feedback errors for specific products. There is no advanced feedback from Allegro, so details may be limited.

By hovering the mouse pointer on an error under the  Validation and feedback tab, you can see further details on any captured error. These details include a trace-ID, which is often requested by Allegro's support when you reach out to them to solve an issue.

Additional information

Participate in Allegro campaigns (Deal Zone)

ChannelEngine lets you participate in Allegro's promotional campaigns. Allegro uses badges for campaigns to encourage customers to buy your products. Badges are textual or graphic labels used to draw buyer attention and highlight products, discounts, and/or active promotions.

Campaigns are not enabled by default. To start using campaigns, contact ChannelEngine. 

To set up a campaign, follow the instructions in the Mapping section.

Mapped content for products that exist on Allegro

Although offers of existing products can be exported, Allegro requires that the chosen category matches that of the product in its database. If the category does not match, the export fails and you may see an error such as the following under the Validation and feedback section of your Listed products:

Existing Product related to submitted data was found. The provided category `Cereals` (261712) does not match the existing product category `Sticky notes blocks` (64557)

If you see such an error, go to Allegro's What are you selling? page and search for the product using its EAN. You can also search by product title.

Select the correct product and check its category. If Allegro's category is correct, adjust your own category accordingly on ChannelEngine. If Allegro's category is incorrect, you can request an update by selecting Report incorrect product information. Note that this requires a manual check, so it may take hours or even days for the product to be updated.

To ensure that your categories match Allegro's, ChannelEngine regularly imports and saves the product categorization. Note that you still need to complete the categorization and content mappings for products that do not exist on Allegro, as well as make sure that all required parameters are mapped.

Variations

Variations are currently not supported by ChannelEngine.

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

Key	Conditional*	Description
AllegroPaymentId	No	The payment ID in the channel order.
Allegro chosen shipment method	No	The delivery method in the channel order.
Allegro smart delivery	No	Indicates whether the delivery in the channel order uses the Smart delivery method with Yes or No.
Discount	Yes	The discount type in the channel order.
Message to seller	Yes	Displays the message to the merchant when important information is added to the channel order.
AllegroBuyerId	Yes	The buyer ID in the channel order.
Pickup point ID	Yes	The delivery pickup point ID in the channel order.
Pickup point name	Yes	The delivery pickup point value in the channel order.
Pickup point description	Yes	The delivery pickup point description in the channel order.
Pickup point street	Yes	The address street value of the buyer tax info in the channel order.
Pickup point zip code	Yes	The postal code value of the buyer tax info in the channel order.
Pickup point city	Yes	The address city value of the buyer tax info in the channel order.
Login	Yes	The login from the billing in the channel order.
Invoice required	Yes	Indicates with True or False whether an invoice is required.
Shipping_method	No	Indicates the shipping method in the channel order.

 

Order line extra data

Key	Conditional*	Description
DiscountAmount	Yes	The original price amount minus the old price amount in the channel order line.
OriginalPriceAmount	No	The original price amount in the channel order line.

FAQs

Can I update my Allegro Price to a promotional price via ChannelEngine?

ChannelEngine does not support Allegro's promotional prices. This is because Allegro does not include the related attribute in their API. For more information on Allegro Prices, check out the article Allegro Prices — the support program for the sellers on Allegro for Sellers.

Why are my orders not imported? 

When fetching orders for Allegro, ChannelEngine uses a filter to retrieve only (new) orders that comply with our requirements and are not yet imported into ChannelEngine. 

If you are missing an order in ChannelEngine that is visible in Allegro, and the import task is not failing or the plugin is disabled, this will almost certainly be because it is not complying with the filters listed below.

Parameter	Value	Explanation
Status	READY_FOR_PROCESSING	All other statuses either state that the order is not yet paid or that it is canceled.
FulfillmentStatus	NEW	We will only import orders that have a fulfillment status of NEW. Once we import the order, we automatically change this status to PROCESSING to prevent possible cancellations and re-importing of this order. Please make absolutely sure you do not manually change this status in the Allegro backend or third-party integration to prevent missing orders.
lineItems.boughtAt.gte	Current date - 14 days	We only import orders from the last 14 days to prevent importing many 'old' orders that were handled outside of ChannelEngine.

ChannelEngine also uses an Offset and a (result) Limit when fetching orders, but this has no direct effect on whether or not an order is imported. 

How do I set up shipping times and shipping costs?

You need to create shipping templates to allow you to configure the following shipping options:

• Shipping countries and/or region(s)
• Address types
• Shipping costs
• Transit times (excluding handling time)

When creating shipping templates you can also set some additional courier/delivery settings. This is not to be confused with the carrier on the shipping label which states who is responsible for shipping that specific order. It does not state anything about the information and conditions you set up in your shipping template.

How do I create shipping (delivery) templates on Allegro?

To create shipping templates on Allegro:

1. Log in to your Allegro account.
2. Go to Sale, and click My sell (Moja sprzedaz).
3. In the left panel, click Delivery settings (Ustawienia dostawy).
4. Here you can set the threshold for free delivery or same-day shipping conditions. The actual shipping (or delivery) template that's used is set at the Delivery price lists (Cenniki dostaw).
   To create a new 'price list', click the orange button labeled Add a new price list (Dodaj nowy cennik) or you can edit an existing one via the Change (Zmien) option.

5. In these price lists you can set your default courier (please note that could still ship with another carrier if needed), the costs you charge per package, what countries are supported for delivery, etc. Remember to pick a sensible name, because you need exactly these names to connect your offers in ChannelEngine to these shipping templates.

6. To map the correct shipping template to be used on your offers from ChannelEngine, navigate to Mappings, Content mappings, Shipping rate name
   

7. You can use a fixed value to enter the name of the shipping template (group), OR, if you want to use multiple shipping templates, you can use smart rules to set these based on specific characteristics (like an attribute value).

8. The total shipping time for Allegro is based upon the handling time (the time it takes from accepting the order to handing the package over to the carrier) you set up in ChannelEngine with the transit time added. This handling time can also be set in content mappings using the handling time attribute. 

How is transit time calculated by Allegro?

The transit time is based on the carrier options and countries you select in the shipping template. More information on this total shipping time can be found here: Allegro: expected delivery time for shipments outside Poland.