The ChannelAdvisor Setup Guide for Rakuten.com Shopping (formerly Buy.com) allows ChannelAdvisor to establish communication with the marketplace. It is important that each section of the guide is complete in order for ChannelAdvisor to efficiently send inventory and quantity allocation updates to Rakuten.com Shopping.

Prerequisites

The following topics should be reviewed before completing this task:

• Rakuten.com Shopping Getting Started Guide
• Listing Guidelines for Rakuten.com Shopping

Media

• How to Use the Setup Guide for Rakuten.com Shopping - This video explains how to access and complete the Rakuten.com Shopping Setup Guide. View the transcript of this video.

Tasks to Complete

1. Access the Rakuten.com Shopping Setup Guide
1. Enter Rakuten.com Shopping Account Information
2. Identify Rakuten.com Shopping Categories
3. Select the Default Rakuten.com Shopping Label
4.  Add Products to the Rakuten.com Shopping Catalog
5. Setup your Quantity Allocation Strategy
6. Inventory Reconciliation
7. Rakuten.com Shopping Shipping Mappings
2. Revising Your Rakuten.com Shopping Settings

Accessing the Rakuten.com Shopping Setup Guide

To begin, you can access the setup guide from Marketplaces > Rakuten.com Shopping > Settings view.  Select the Continue button to begin the Setup Guide. View Image

Setup Guide Overview

Once in the Rakuten.com Shopping Setup Guide you will be guided through a series of steps. Below is some information about how to navigate through the steps of the Setup Guide View Image

1. Navigation: To advance between the sections of the guide simply select the links under Getting Started or select the Next button
2. SSC Help: Click on this symbol    to view SSC content related to the applicable section of the guide.
   
3. Help Tool: Select this icon to view helpful hints about how to complete each field within the guide.
    
4. Save and Return: You may save your progress and return to the guide at any time by navigating to the Rakuten.com Shopping > Settings view

Enter Rakuten.com Shopping Account Information

The first step of the guide asks you to provide ChannelAdvisor your Rakuten.com Shopping credentials.  Enter your FTP username and password as well as your Rakuten.com Shopping Seller Tools username and password. View Image

Once you have entered this information, select Next.
 

Identify Your Rakuten.com Shopping Categories

Select the Rakuten.com Shopping categories that you will be selling in. The categories selected here will be made available in your Rakuten.com Shopping template later on in the listing process. View Image

Select the Default Rakuten.com Shopping Label

ChannelAdvisor uses labels to associate your inventory with a channel.  In this step of the setup guide we will default your inventory label for Rakuten.com Shopping to " Rakuten.com Shopping".  If you would like to use a different label you may change that selection here.  In addition, you can create a new label or make adjustments to the selected label from this screen.   Please refer to the labels page of the SSC for detailed information about this topic. View Image

Select the Rakuten.com Shopping Default Template

ChannelAdvisor uses templates to map your inventory information to the site's specification.  In this step of the setup guide we will default your template for Rakuten.com Shopping to Rakuten.com Shopping Default Template.  If you would like to use a different template you may change that selection here.  Once you have selected your template, select Next.View Image

Adding Products to the Rakuten.com Shopping Catalog

You have two options to choose from in this section of the guide. View Image

1. First, you can choose to allow ChannelAdvisor to send all of your product information to Rakuten.com Shopping. This includes product information for items that are currently being sold on Rakuten.com Shopping as well as product information for items that are not yet being sold on Rakuten.com Shopping and need to be added to the Rakuten.com Shopping catalog.
2. As a best practice we suggest selecting the second option here to only send data for products that are currently being sold in the Rakuten.com Shopping catalog.

Once you have had a chance to make sure that you are sending all of the correct data for new items not in the Rakuten.com Shopping catalog then you can come back to this setting and select the first option. This is suggested due to the fact that several fields cannot be updated or added to once the new product information has been sent. For more information on adding products to the Rakuten.com Shopping catalog visit the Adding New Products to the Rakuten.com Shopping Catalog section of the Listing Your Products page.

Setup Your Quantity Allocation Strategy

Next, we provide you a step to setup your quantity allocation strategy.  There are three aspects to a quantity allocation strategy 

1. Quantity to send
2. Quantity to withhold or reserve for another channel
3. Choice to allocate, or commit quantity to the site, or not allocate

Inventory Reconciliation

In the event that your inventory information has been updated directly on Rakuten.com Shopping, unanticipated results may occur, including the possibility of overselling. For this reason, ChannelAdvisor strongly recommends you never update your inventory information directly on Rakuten.com Shopping. To help safeguard this, ChannelAdvisor provides the Inventory Reconciliation feature. When enabled, this feature will automatically detect any differences between your Rakuten.com Shopping inventory and your ChannelAdvisor inventory and reconcile the differences according to the behavior you specify on the Inventory Reconciliation settings page. View Image

1. I only list Rakuten.com Shopping products through ChannelAdvisor: If ChannelAdvisor detects products listed on Rakuten.com Shopping that are not assigned to an active ChannelAdvisor Biu.com feed, the Reconciler will withdraw those products from Rakuten.com Shopping. This option is recommended to ensure the catalog parity between the two platforms.
2. I only set my Rakuten.com Shopping prices directly within ChannelAdvisor: If ChannelAdvisor detects a price difference to an Rakuten.com Shopping product that is currently managed by ChannelAdvisor, it will correct that price difference with the value configured in the ChannelAdvisor platform. This option only applies to price updates made outside of the ChannelAdvisor software - price updates made directly within ChannelAdvisor will update on Rakuten.com Shopping regardless if this setting is on or off. This option only applies to products assigned to an active ChannelAdvisor Rakuten.com Shopping feed.

For additional information and example on how this feature works please refer to the Using the Marketplaces Inventory Reconciler page. 

Rakuten.com Shopping Shipping Mappings

In this section of the guide you will need to map the shipping carriers configured in your ChannelAdvisor account to the applicable Rakuten.com Shopping shipping carriers. This will tell ChannelAdvisor what Rakuten.com Shopping carrier (UPS, USPS, DHL, etc) to send with shipping confirmations. View Image

Revising Your Rakuten.com Shopping Settings

You have now completed the process to set up your account through ChannelAdvisor.  Navigate to the Rakuten.com Shopping > Settings view to adjust your Setup Guide selections. You will also be able to access your Rakuten.com Shopping Template from this view in order to map your product data to Rakuten.com Shopping's specifications. View Image

1. Editing the Setup Guide: Select the edit icon to change any of the settings you have selected within the Setup Guide
    
2. Access the Rakuten.com Shopping Template: Select the Rakuten.com Shopping Default Template link