In order to add new products to Rakuten.com Shopping's (formerly Buy.com) catalog to eventually be listed to the Rakuten.com Shopping Marketplace you will need to be aware of Rakuten.com Shopping's listing requirements. Located within Rakuten.com Shopping's Marketplace Seller Documents for New Product Feeds page is a list of category specific documents that outlines the data requirements to add products to the catalog. Familiarizing yourself with this venue and the documents located here is a fundamental step to listing successfully on Rakuten.com Shopping.
Prerequisites
You should be familiar with the following topics before proceeding:
Tasks to Complete
- Determine your Rakuten.com Shopping Categories
- Review Product Requirements
- Prepare Your Inventory According to Rakuten.com Shopping's Requirements
Determine Your Rakuten.com Shopping Categories
Rakuten.com Shopping supports a wide range of categories. Some categories require approval from Rakuten.com Shopping before you can list products and not all categories are currently supported by the ChannelAdvisor application. When you move forward and begin completing the Rakuten.com Shopping Setup Guide within the ChannelAdvisor application you will need to tell the software which categories you will be selling in to be able to access the category specific portions of the Rakuten.com Shopping Template.
Review Product Requirements
Rakuten.com Shopping requires specific product information from sellers that are adding new products to the Rakuten.com Shopping catalog. The documents below outline the data points that Rakuten.com Shopping requires information for. In order to add products to the catalog you will need to take note of these requirements and update your inventory accordingly. These documents can be accessed within Rakuten.com Shopping's Marketplace Seller Documents for New Product Feeds page.
- New Product Feed Specifications: This document provides the following information needed to add your products to the catalog:
- Fields Rakuten.com Shopping accept data for
- Fields that are required
- Field length limitations
- Example values
- Instructions to reference the Taxonomy Matrix (Cattegory Attributes Document)
- Category Attributes: Reference this document to determine the following information for your products being added to the Rakuten.com Shopping catalog:
- Category ID values
- Accepted Attributes
- [Attribute Name] - Indicates that attribute is required
- {Attribute Name} - Indicates that attribute can vary
- Valid attribute values
Prepare Your Inventory According to Rakuten.com Shopping's Requirements
Once you have determined the categories you are going to sell in and have reviewed Rakuten.com Shopping's data requirements you are now ready to prepare your inventory. There are two scenarios that you will encounter when going through this process.
Scenario 1: Create Inventory Attribute
You would like or, if it is a Rakuten.com Shopping required field, will have to send a data point that is not currently part of your inventory. Typically you will need to do this for fields that are specific to Rakuten.com Shopping such as the ' Rakuten.com Shopping Category ID' since you probably will not have an attribute in your inventory that can be used to send this information. In this scenario you will probably need to add a new attribute and populate that attribute with the values that Rakuten.com Shopping accepts. To learn more about adding attributes please refer to the Using Inventory Attributes page.
Scenario 2: Transform Your Data to Meet Rakuten.com Shopping's Requirements
You have the data point in your inventory but your values don't match the values accepted by Rakuten.com Shopping. For instance in the Clothing and Accessories category for color, Red is an acceptable value. You happen to have a color called Fire Engine Red which is not a color value accepted by Rakuten.com Shopping. Although you could create a new attribute for color in your inventory specifically for Rakuten.com Shopping it is far more efficient and highly recommended that you utilize a business rule or a lookup list to transform your color value into the value accepted by Rakuten.com Shopping. These are two options avaialable to manipulate your data into a value accepted by Rakuten.com Shopping without having to clutter up your inventory with extra attributes. Please refer to the SSC page on Business Rules and Lookup Lists to learn more about utlizing these tools to manipulate your data.
Reference
Refer to the following pages for more information: