refurbed: how to handle IMEIs and serial numbers

About this article

This article describes the refurbed requirement for serial numbers and the international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) numbers, and how to handle them on ChannelEngine.

Table of contents

Introduction

ChannelEngine API

Adobe Commerce (née Magento)

Shopify

Introduction

refurbed requires merchants to provide the IMEI or serial number of certain electronics on its platform. Failing to do so could result in penalties.

ChannelEngine supports three ways to handle the addition of IMEI and serial numbers to electronics sold on refurbed:

• Via the ChannelEngine API
• Via Adobe Commerce
• Via Shopify

Regardless of the platform you use, the following limitations apply:

• It is only possible to add IMEIs and serial numbers to order lines where the quantity is equal to 1 (one). E.g.: if you sell one Samsung Galaxy S21 and one iPhone 13, each of those items falls within their own order line and the respective IMEIs can be added. If you sell two iPhone 13s, both fall within the same order line – and adding the IMEIs is not possible.
• This IMEI flow is only supported when the product is correctly assigned to the Smartphones category within refurbed. If not, adding IMEIs is not possible.

ChannelEngine API

You must provide an IMEI or serial number in the order line item, within the ExtraData field in the shipment response model, when creating the shipment. The key and value should be structured in the following way:

• { Name: "serialnumber", Value: serial_number_value } - for products with serial numbers, such as laptops.
• { Name: "imei", Value: imei_number_value } - for products with IMEI numbers, such as smartphones.

E.g.:

{   "MerchantShipmentNo": "SHIP123",   "MerchantOrderNo": "ORDER123",   "Lines": [     {       "MerchantProductNo": "IPHONE13",       "ExtraData": {         "IMEI": "123456789012345"       },       "Quantity": 1     }   ],   "ExtraData": {     "SHIPMENT_INFO": "Whatever value you want"   },   "TrackTraceNo": "123",   "TrackTraceUrl": "post.nl/123",   "ReturnTrackTraceNo": "post.nl/return/123",   "Method": "POST_NL",   "ShippedFromCountryCode": "NL" } 

Note that it is not possible to do this procedure using ChannelEngine's web interface, but the related extra data is shown on the shipment level – as seen below.

Adobe Commerce (née Magento)

You must provide an IMEI or serial number in the order line item, within the ExtensionAttributes field in the shipment response model, when creating the shipment. The key and value should be structured as { Name: "serialnumber", Value: serial_number_value } or { Name: "imei", Value: imei_number_value }.

Shopify

Add a tag with the required IMEI or serial numbers to the order line item, within the Tags field in the order response model. That must be done before handling the fulfillment.

The tag must be structured as: SKU + colon (:) + IMEI (as in the acronym IMEI) + the IMEI number, without spaces. E.g.: SKU123:IMEI123456789101112.

That approach also works for serial numbers, structured as: SKU + colon (:) + serialnumber (as in the term serialnumber) + the serial number itself, without spaces. E.g.: SKU321:serialnumber123456.

Note that:

• The SKU is not the same as the Merchant product number – but the product's SKU as seen on Shopify.
• There must be one tag per product, even if it is a quantity higher than one of the same product. E.g.: three products within the same order line need one tag each, and the same is valid for three products in three separate order lines.
• The SKU cannot be longer than 20 characters, as the maximum number of characters allowed by Shopify in the tag is 40.