Marketplace integration: how your items get onto new channels

What a marketplace integration has to deliver

An integration connects the system in which your items are maintained with the marketplace. It has to do three things reliably:

• Hand over product data: title, description, attributes, variants, images and identifiers such as the GTIN, prepared the way each marketplace requires.
• Synchronise stock and price: what your system reports is what appears on the marketplace. Otherwise you sell goods that are no longer in the warehouse.
• Bring orders back: orders reach your inventory management, your ERP or the warehouse directly, without retyping. Shipping status and tracking number go back to the marketplace.

Why every marketplace wants different data

Every marketplace has its own category structure and its own mandatory fields. What is enough for Amazon is rejected by another channel because a detail is missing or named differently. That is why new channels rarely fail for lack of will, but because of data maintenance.

The cleanest route: you maintain the basis once in your system and define for each channel what differs. An integration with templates and rules applies this to all items in a group, including new ones.

Five steps to your first new channel

• Choose a channel. Does the marketplace suit your range and your prices? Many marketplaces vet merchants before activation.
• Create a seller account. Contract, payment processing and payouts always run between you and the marketplace.
• Access to the interface. The integration requires the access credentials for the marketplace interface, not the passwords for your account.
• Prepare data. Map categories, fill in mandatory fields, check variants and images. First a few test items, then the full range.
• Go live and monitor. Clean up rejected items, follow orders and stock closely in the first days.

Typical mistakes

• Stock is only synchronised once a day. That is not enough for fast-moving items.
• Orders are transferred by email or spreadsheet. That takes time and causes errors in address and quantity.
• Every channel is maintained individually by hand. From the third marketplace on, that becomes a job of its own.
• Returns and cancellations are not handled. The marketplace sees an open order, your system does not.

Connect it yourself or have it connected?

Anyone with their own development team can address the marketplace interfaces themselves. For most merchants and manufacturers, that is not worthwhile: every interface changes, and every further channel is a new project.

With X-Sitter MARKETS, your items are maintained in one place, and around 80 marketplaces and shops are on the channel list. MARKETS runs directly on your ERP, your inventory management or your shop, even without X-Sitter CONNECT. If you wish, we take care of setup and operation: Have marketplaces connected.