The Magento bol.com link: one stock, two shop windows.
What sells on bol comes off the same shelf as what sells in your own shop.
Short answer
A link between Magento and bol puts products from your Magento catalogue on bol as listings, keeps price and stock there equal to your own shop and brings bol orders in as ordinary Magento orders. Bol offers the Retailer API for this. Jevana sets up an existing connector or builds one, and watches that stock is not sold twice.
The path of a bol order
- 01
Listing
Magento sends the price, stock and delivery time of each product to bol, matched on EAN.
- 02
Sale
A customer orders on bol. The order appears in Magento, among your other orders.
- 03
Stock
Magento deducts it and reports the new level to bol and to your own shop.
- 04
Shipping
You ship as always. The tracking code goes back to bol automatically.
Where it gets stuck in practice
The technology is the smallest part. Most time goes into the catalogue: bol matches listings on an EAN, and a product without a valid EAN cannot take part. If you have run your products on your own item numbers for years, you have to fill those in first.
The second point is stock. Bol charges you for orders you cannot deliver. A link that updates every hour is too slow for a fast seller. So we set a safety margin per item, so the last pieces are not sold in two places at once.
Good to know beforehand
- What you need
- A seller account at bol and an EAN on every product you want to list.
- Prices
- The same as in your shop, or a price of its own per channel. Both can be set.
- Returns
- Arrive as a notification in Magento, so they end up in the same administration.
- Other marketplaces
- The same set-up works for other sales platforms. That often runs through an intermediary service that handles several channels.
Questions
How does a link between Magento and bol work?
The link uses the bol Retailer API. Magento sends the listing for each product with price, stock and delivery time, and asks for new orders at set moments. They arrive in Magento as ordinary orders. After shipping, the tracking code goes back to bol. Little changes for your team: bol orders sit in the same list.
How do you prevent stock from being sold twice?
By letting one system keep the stock and passing every sale straight on to the other channel. When an order comes in at your own shop, the new level goes to bol at once, and the other way round. For items with few pieces you set a margin: with two left, the link reports zero. That costs a sale now and then and avoids a penalty.
Do all products from my shop have to be on bol?
No. You choose per product or category whether it is offered on bol. Products with a low margin, no EAN or a long delivery time are usually left out, because bol's commission and delivery terms suit them badly. The choice is stored as an attribute on the product in Magento and can be changed at any time.
Can we also link through an intermediary such as a feed manager?
Yes, and with several sales channels that is often sensible. An intermediary takes the catalogue from Magento and spreads it over bol and other platforms, each in the right format. We then make sure Magento supplies the data well and that orders come back. Whether a direct link or an intermediary is cheaper depends on the number of channels.
Goes well with
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Magento and Akeneo
Product data managed in Akeneo PIM and published to Magento, in every language and for every channel.
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Magento and Exact Online
Orders to Exact, stock and prices back to the shop, with it agreed up front which system is in charge.
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Custom modules
Modules that do what no existing module does well, built so the next upgrade is not a project.
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Magento maintenance and support
Patches, updates, monitoring and a contact for outages, for a fixed monthly amount.
Tell us what you run.
An introduction costs nothing. You talk straight away to one of the two people who will actually do the work.
or email info@jevana.systems