BeezUP has as main goals to make your products publications towards marketplaces as smooth as possible, nevertheless due to deep technical differences between marketplaces, some differences can appear within BeezUP.
This article puts together for each marketplace and/or marketplace operator engine, different publications options & strategies available in BeezUP as well as their meaning.
SUMMARY
1. Publication type details
This image is only a sample, to see full table, click on it, or here.
2. Usefull definitions
a. Connection
API
This connection type usually provides the best data exchange between BeezUP and marketplace : in terms of provided content & synchronisation period.
BeezUP, thanks to your authorisation (given through login/API passwords or tokens or through oath2.0), can exchange data with the given marketplace providing data contract is respected.
BeezUP can define data frequency exchange, since we are in a "push" setup.HTTP
This communication protocol is used to describe cases where the marketplace fetches, at a specific period of time defined by itself, a http feed hosted by BeezUP.
We are then in a "pull" setup, where BeezUP cannot control update period of time.
This connection does not allow, in general, to get publication reports within BeezUP.FTP
This data exchange protocol is sometimes used by marketplaces to secure large files data transfer.
If the FTP server is the marketplace one, then we are in a "push" setup where BeezUP can define synchronisation period (unless explicit contraints on marketplace side).
If the FTP server is BeezUP one, we are then in a very similar setup as HTTP.
b. Feed types
Products
This is "cold" data that does not change much over time: titles, descriptions, images, attributes etc.Offers
This is "hot" data that evolves often over time: "prices", "discount prices", "shipping prices", "shipping delays" and obviously "inventory level", etc.Ads
This is a mix of product & offers data: this is usually used by marketplaces that do not allow "multi-sellers" offers on a single product but only one "ad" by product and by seller: all necessary data is then put together.
⏩ Other feed type are self explicit: prices, availability, images, etc.
c. Publication period
Meaning how often BeezUP does synchronize data with marketplaces.
d. Publish strategies
Depending on marketplaces specifications, as well as BeezUP choice, several data publication strategies can be described.
These publication strategies rely on 2 main "pillars":
Content
"Full" or sometimes named "All exported ones" in BeezUP
In such case all active exported products are transmitted to the marketplace.
This content type is usually associated with publication type "overwrite" described below.
Differential or sometimes named "Last updated ones" in BeezUP
In such case, for each publication are only pushed to the marketplace:
- new offers appeared since last successful publish.
- updated offers since last successful publish.
- publish failed offers during last publish.
- disappeared offers since last successful publish, by pushing inventory level to 0 or any unpublish method defined by the marketplace.
This explains why these "differential" publications have lower products than "full" ones.
Publication mode
Update
This publication mode defines how the marketplace will proceed with submited products regarding potential already existing ones !
In case of "update", only pushed skus are impacted: existing published ones on marketplace side are not modified.
This publication mode is often associated with "Differential" content
Overwrite
In opposition to "update" mode, marketplace ignore already existing content and will replace it only by pushed data.
This is a bit like if before each publish, all existing content was deleted, and only incoming one was then considered.
This publication mode is usually associated with "Full" ones
e. Unpublish strategies
In addition to publish strategies, some unpublish strategies are rolledout by BeezUP depending on each marketplace.
Unpublishing is necessary to make sure that when a product disappears from your store and/or submitted feed, it's also removed on marketplace side.
Inventory level set to 0 for products removed from source feed (for 48h)
This method, usually associated with following ones, allows to keep exporting disappeared products from your source feed, but with an inventory level set to 0.
Publication with inventory set to 0 for offers removed from export.
This strategy is automatically associated with "Differential" content and allows to push with inventory level set to 0, all offers that have disappeared since previous successful sync.
By Overwrite
This unpublish strategy goes along with "Overwriting" publish mode : all products that are not transmitted to the marketplace are deleted by the marketplace during each sync.
Unpublish by comparison
This strategy compares one one hand existing products on the marketplace side, and on the other hand, exported products for this marketplace.
The "gap" (existing products on marketplace side but not on export side) are then published with inventory 0 so that the marketplace unpublishes them.