Obelink: marketplace guide

About this guide

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

Table of contents

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Channel features

Settings and configuration

Channel-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Pricing
• Listed products

FAQs

 

Commercial information

Founded	1959
Founder	Jan Obelink
Headquarters	Winterswijk, the Netherlands
Area served (orders)	Belgium, Germany, Netherlands
Revenue	USD 9.5M (2018)
Number of monthly visits	around 500,000
Website	Obelink
Setup cost	none
Commission	15%
Other costs	monthly fee of EUR 39.95 (the first six months are free)
Payment	1th, 11th, 21th
Product categories	Camping & outdoor, Pets, Shoes/bags/luggage, Sports. DIY/gardening
Input language	Dutch, German
Input currency	EUR
Content creation	yes
Minimum number of SKUs	no
Advertisement options	no
Profile on ChannelEngine	Obelink

How to request an account

To start selling on Obelink, you can contact Obelink directly, or go to the partner portal, and fill in the form.

Associated costs

Selling on Obelink comes with the following costs:

• Monthly fee - Obelink charges a monthly fee of EUR 39.95. The first six month are free of charge.
• Commission - Obelink charges a 15% commission on each sale.

Channel features

Supported	Not supported
Product offers	Returns/refunds (channel)
Product content	Marketplace fulfillment service
Orders	Repricing
Returns/refunds (merchant)	Cancelations
Shipments	Automatic relationships
Carrier mapping
HTML formatting
Sales channels*

* 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, once you add the channel:

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.

Channel-specific requirements and exceptions

Setup

On ChannelEngine

Obelink 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 Obelink 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 on Obelink is straightforward, and the categories are listed in Dutch.

Mappings

Content

All products (required)

• Artikelnummer fabrikant (Supplier item number) - the manufacturer's internal identifier. Usually your Vendor product number on ChannelEngine.
• Barcode (EAN/UPC)- the 13-digit EAN or UPC of the product.
• Hoofdafbeelding (Main product image) - the product's main image. The following requirements apply:
  • Images must have a resolution of 1,200x900 px, 72 dpi format.
  • There must be white space around images, with a minimum of 30 px on all sides.
  • The preferred formats are .png, .webp, and .jpg.
• Merk (Brand) - the brand/manufacturer of the product.
• Omschrijving [country] (Description)- the full description of your product. Obelink supports the use of the HTML tags hard return <br> and bold <b>bold text</b>.
  Obelink (see Obelink Marktplaats Handleiding) advices you to structure the product description as follows:
  
  • Paragraph 1 - the brand and the product name with accompanying text on what it is in 2/3 sentences.
  • Paragraph 2 (emotions)- start with the user scenario (e.g.: For whom? Why do you need it?), then describe the problem, the consequence, and the solution.
  • Paragraph 3 (facts) - what makes the product unique? Compare it to other products or explain the most important properties in more detail. Radiate a specialist and use power words such as: recommended by, especially recommended, our advice, our tip, advised, certified, proven, tested, warranty, approved.
  • Summary - 3-4 advantages and 1 disadvantage of the product.
• Product naam [country] (Product name)- the product’s title. It must be structured as [Brand] + [Product name] + [Keyword] (i.e.: type of product) – with a maximum of 60 characters. Do not add other specifications to the title. Every product must be named differently, but attributes can have the same name. Also, note that the product title must be added per country even if you are not actively selling it in that country.

  Correct:
  Obelink Eiger 3 Koepeltent

  Incorrect:
  Obelink Eiger 3 personen Polyester Koepeltent 350x250x120cm

• Shop SKU - your internal variant identifier. Usually, your Merchant product number on ChannelEngine. E.g.: ABC123-Yellow-Medium.

All products (optional)

• Afbeelding 2-6 (image 2-6) - the product’s additional images. The following requirements apply:
• Omschrijving [country] - this attribute becomes mandatory if you want to list the product in related markets.
• Variant group code - used to create variants, aka parent-child relationships, on Obelink. E.g.: a tent with different colors and/or different sizes. The following requirements apply.

Offer

Required

• Price - the sale price of the product.

Optional

Because Obelink uses sales channels, there are optional attributes available that contain the country code: Belgium = "Obelink_be", Germany = "Webshop_DE", and Netherlands = "INIT"

• Discount start date [INIT, Obelink_be, or Webshop_DE]
• Discount end date [INIT, Obelink_be, or Webshop_DE]
• Discount price [INIT, Obelink_be, or Webshop_DE]
• Discount quantity threshold [INIT, Obelink_be, or Webshop_DE]
• Price [INIT, Obelink_be, or Webshop_DE]
  

Refer to the Configuring discount prices article to learn more about setting up prices per sales channel.

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.
• Minimum quantity alert - map this attribute to receive a notification from ChannelEngine 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. Below you can find the codes used by this marketplace:

Code	Label	Description
SP	Small parcel	Max weight 3 kg; max length 50 cm and a max circumference (2xw + 2xh + 1xl) of 111 cm
NP	Normal parcel	Max weight 31,5 kg; max lenght 175 cm and a max circumference (2xw +2xh +1xl) of 300 cm
NSP	Non standard parcel	"Parcel has longer length or diagonal than 130 cm; and/or weight >35 kg; and/or parcel unstable, irregular shape (sphere, cylinder, roll)"

 

Carrier

Carrier mapping is not required on Obelink. However, you can map your carrier to a specific list of carriers maintained by Obelink. This allows for working track-and-trace links in the back-end, as well as for the buyer. If your default carrier is missing, please contact Obelink.

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 channels?

By default, Mirakl-based channels 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