1. Marketplace Integration
Tom Greasley

2. Where do you want to sell?

3. Marketplace Integration

4. Integration tasks
• Product
Lis,ng
• Pricing
• Inventory
• Order
Ingest
• Payment
• Order
Status
• CRM

5. • Welcome to Hell.
• Many, many, different
technologies and
formats.
• Batch and message
based.
• Some interfaces are
well defined...
• ...some are not.
Integration Methods

6. eBay Integration
• Fine grained, single
operation API
• Document style web
service
• XML Documents
• WSDL + XSD
• SDKs Available

7. Amazon Integration
• Batch style API
• HTTP GET/POST
• XML Documents
• XSD
• SDKs Available
• Request params are
passed via a signed
query string.
POST
mws.amazonservices.com/
AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAFJPPO5KLY6G4XO7Q&Act
ion=GetFeedSubmissionResult&FeedSubm
issionId=4321011681&Marketplace=ATVPDKI
KX0DER&Merchant=A3F1LGRLCQDI4D&Signa
tureMethod=HmacSHA256&SignatureVersion=
2&Timestamp=2011-02-04T23%3A08%3A19Z
&Version=2009-01-01

8. • Batch
style
API
• HTTP
POST
• TSV
&
XML
documents.
• No
schema
• Request
params
are
passed
via
HTTP
headers
POST
https://api.playtrade.com/
AdvancedReports.asmx/
GenerateAdvancedReportNow
HTTP HEADERS
Authorization: Basic
dXNlcm5hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQ=
Content-Type: text/xml
ReportName: CompetitorPricing
AdvancedPricingCondition: 0
AdvancedPricingType: 0
Play.com Integration

9. Tesco Direct Integration
• 'Conversa,onal'
Batch
API
• FTP/Email
• Tab
separated
values
(ish)
• This
“schema”

10. Integration Considerations
• Get
it
right!
• Feedback
is
public
• You
can
be
suspended
from
the
marketplace
• GeUng
it
wrong
can
be
expensive

11. Design and Development
• Decide on a sensible
scope.
• Plan your development.
• Contact the marketplace.
• Select your libraries
carefully.
• Consider a service like
Channel Advisor.

12. Traffic Management
• Rate limit strategies
• Calls per Hour/Day
• Amazon's 'Leaky
Bucket'
• File size limits
• Upload limits
• Processing queues.

13. • Product
matching
• Marketplace
specific
data
• Categorisa,on
• Shipping
Costs.
• Lis,ng
page
design
Product Listing

14. Inventory Management
• Maintaining an accurate
picture of stock can be hard.
• Latency can cause
overselling.
• Strategies:
• Stock segmentation
• Never decrement inventory
• Hold excess stock
• Maintain a buffer stock

15. Managing Change
• Changes to
marketplaces will be
outside your control.
• Fair warning is
usually, but not always
given.
• Constant monitoring is
necessary.
• Managing change can
be a full time role.

16. API Change
• API and Document specs. can
change frequently.
• Category structures change
frequently.
• eBay API every two weeks.
• Tesco had breaking changes
during development

17. • Rules govern what can be changed
• Some data is read only once listed
• Take care when deactivating listings
• Protect your ranking
Changing Listings

18. • It's worth the effort
• Plan well
• Plan for change
• It's a full time role
• Get it right because feedback will be very
public