Shöpping

Shöpping is the Austrian Post's marketplace. TRADElube fetches the orders from there and reports back what has become of them. In the channel type selection the channel sits in the group Marketplaces and is called Shöpping there.

You maintain your range at Shöpping yourself. This channel transfers no products, no categories, no images and no stock. It is cut down to order processing and does both directions there. What that means for the setup is under "Special features and limits".

Prerequisites

What	Where it comes from
A merchant account at Shöpping	Your merchant number belongs in the field Merchant Id
A key for the interface	It belongs in the field API Key
A maintained range at Shöpping	Without offers there are no orders, and offers you create there

Setting up the connection

In the Login Details section enter Merchant Id and API Key and save.
Check the mappings, see below. They come prefilled, and the presets do not fit in every client.
Start the tasks.

The checkbox Sandbox switches the channel over to Shöpping's practice environment. There you can play the process through without a real order being touched. For live operation it stays empty.

Login details section of the Shöpping channel with the merchant id entered, the API key masked and the empty Sandbox checkbox

Mappings

The channel holds four tabs, one per list that exists on both sides. The column External shows the entry at Shöpping, the column Internal the one in TRADElube.

Tab	What gets mapped
Order Status	An order's state at Shöpping onto your order status
Payment Methods	The buyer's means of payment onto your payment method
Shipping Methods	Shöpping's delivery contract onto your shipping method
Tax Rates	An order line's tax class onto your tax rate

All four come prefilled, and that is where this channel differs from the rest: Shöpping keeps short, fixed lists, and TRADElube enters them when the channel is created. So the External column already holds the four order states, the four means of payment, the delivery contract and the Austrian tax class.

The other column is the one you check. What gets preset there is whatever fits in your client, and that does not always work out: the tax rate is looked up by its level, twenty per cent, and the payment methods stay empty where yours are not named the same. An order with an unmapped payment method still arrives and carries nothing in that place. An unmapped order status, on the other hand, leaves Orders Status Upload standing with an error.

Order status tab of the Shöpping channel with the four prefilled rows, on the left Shöpping's state and on the right the order status in TRADElube

Available tasks

Two tasks, one in each direction. Download means from Shöpping into TRADElube, upload the other way round.

Task	Direction	Transfers	Notes
Orders Download	Import	Orders with line items, addresses, vouchers and customers	The field Age of Orders to Sync limits how far back the search goes
Orders Status Upload	Export	An order's state back to Shöpping	Reports confirmed, shipped or canceled, along with the tracking number

Which of these tasks exist in your client is decided by your needs: what gets created is what you actually use. These two do belong together, though. Without the second one every order stays unconfirmed at Shöpping, and the marketplace never learns that you have delivered.

Special features and limits

The channel does not transfer products. There is no task for products, categories, images, properties or stock, and there is no field for it on the channel either. You create your offers in Shöpping's administration and maintain them there. TRADElube picks up from the point after that: at the order arising from such an offer.

For you that means two things. The stock in the marketplace does not move with yours, and an article you delist in TRADElube stays at Shöpping until you end it there. And the link between the two sides is the product number: a line item finds its product in TRADElube only where the number at Shöpping is the same one.

Stock is the place where that hurts most. Where you sell the same article in your own shop and at Shöpping, you keep two stocks that know nothing of each other.

The channel works in euros and with Austrian tax. The Tax Rates tab comes prefilled with the tax class at-vat-full, and the currency is not a setting.

The channel does not transfer customers of its own accord. They are created in TRADElube with the order that triggered them, and do not travel to Shöpping as a stock of their own.

Common questions

My orders arrive, but without a payment method. Then the row for that means of payment is missing in the Payment Methods tab. Shöpping's four values sit prefilled in the External column. Add your own payment method beside them.

Shöpping still shows my orders as open. Then Orders Status Upload is not running, or the order status your order sits at is not mapped.

Can I transfer my range from TRADElube to Shöpping? No, and the channel provides nothing for it either. Offers are created and maintained in Shöpping's administration.

How do I try the process out without touching a real order? Through Sandbox in the Login Details section. The channel then addresses Shöpping's practice environment.