Overview

eBay inventory synchronization allows you to synchronize your stock levels with eBay listings. The feature is designed to prevent you from overselling on eBay when an item is sold on another channel (such as Amazon, Play.com, Magento or any other type of web-sites). It also makes it easy to take control of your listings on eBay, as it will no longer be necessary to relist or adjust listings.

The system will perform the following tasks:

Standard listings

• Revise the available quantity on eBay to reflect your stock level (for Fixed Price listings);
• End listing when stock level is 0 (Auctions and Fixed Price listings);
• Relist ended listing when stock level is greater than 0 (Auctions relisted with quantity of 1, Fixed Price listings will be relisted with the quantity in stock);

Multi-variant listings

• Revise available quantity of a variant to reflect your stock level;
• Strike variant off when variant stock level is 0;
• Reinstate variant for a specific listing when stock level is greater than 0;
• End the whole listing when all variants stock levels are 0;
• Relist the listing with variants which were ended previously due to stock level 0 and reinstate appropriate variants;
• Add variants to relisted listing when stock level is greater than 0;

How to use

To enable eBay inventory synchronization go to Settings > Channel Integration

From this screen you can add, delete and modify selling channels that you wish Linnworks to integrate with.

To enable inventory synchronisation for your eBay account click the coloured under the Enabled column to toggle between Red (Disabled) and Green (Enabled).

For more information on configuring inventory synchronisation settings, please see the eBay Integration page.

Mapping listings to inventory

For inventory synchronization to work you need to link listing to an inventory item. The linking is done automatically when possible, and all listings that don't match any of the products will need to be linked manually (see How Linnworks matches listings to inventory).

Click on the Mapping button for each integrated eBay account in Settings > Channel Integration to bring up the Mapping tool. This screen displays all your Active listings on eBay for this account.

From this screen you can do the following actions:

• Link listing manually - this will also be applied to all listings with the same titles and SKU automatically. So you don't have to do the manual linking again;
• Unlink listing manually - this will remove all existing mappings to the product for all listings with the same title/SKU;
• Create new inventory item for all unlinked listings (or for only one);
• View Log for a listing;
• Review what will be updated next time you synchronize;

How to use the Mapping Tool

• All your listings are on the left hand side, you can search for products in the inventory on the right hand side by typing a search term in the field provided and pressing Enter;
• To link a product with the listing, select the listing on the left hand side and double click stock item on the right hand side;
• To Unlink, Create New etc right click on the list of listings to bring up popup menu;
• To search the list of listings use filters on the top of the grid;
• Note that all actions are instantly saved on the database;

How Linnworks matches listings to inventory

When SKU mapping is enabled:

• By SKU to Item Number in stock item definition directly, if not;
• By linked Channel SKU, if not;
• By Linked Titles table by SKU + Item Title, if not;
• By Item title alone;

Note that if you have SKU specified in the listing which matches Item Number in stock item, the linking will be created automatically and you cannot unlink this item. It will remain linked even if you perform manual unlink.

The same applies to if the listing title matches stock item title. Even if it is unlinked manually, the listing will be automatically linked next time the system synchronizes or Mapping Tool is launched.

When SKU mapping is not enabled:

• By stock item title = listing title, if not;
• Use Linked titles table (populate when you manually link listing to inventory);

 

 

Action Confirmation

When Action confirmation is enabled for a particular actions (Revise, Relist or End) the system will show an Action Confirmation prompt when you synchronize for all listing adjustments Linnworks about to make. The actions will be split into sections - Change, End and Relist. Each showing which listings will be affected. You can approve the action or reject it by ticking Agree checkbox on each line.

• To confirm selection click Accept Selected;
• Accept All - marks all records as Accepted and closes the prompt;
• Reject All - marks all records as Rejected (no actions will be taken) and closes the prompt;
• Wait All - suspends all actions until next time you synchronize (no actions will be taken this time around);
• Hold - the prompt is shown for 120 seconds by default. After 120 seconds Accept All will be automatically be triggered. You can hold the count down by clicking Hold;
• Each line contains sub-details about the listing and it's linked stock item click + sign on each line to expand and view this details;
• The grids have filtering for easy selection;

 

Auction Type

The first column on the Mapping screen shows you which type of listing it is. The symbols are as follows:

 Listings with this symbol are Auction Listings.

 Listings with this symbol are Buy It Now Listings.

 

Viewing Logs

The system keeps detailed logs of all changes to the listings. You can review these logs by clicking View Log button for each integrated account in eBay Inventory Watch configuration screen.

The screen splits the logs into 3 sections, Active Listings, Pending Relist and Ended (latest 10000 listings are shown for Ended listings). To view the log, double click on the record to bring up the log of the changes and actions (only actions performed or rejected by Linnworks are shown in this log any direct actions on eBay are not recorded here).

Remove listing from inventory control

It is possible to strike off individual listing from inventory synchronization. The actual listing will not be affected on eBay in any way.  This action will tell Linnworks to completely ignore this listing in all aspects of inventory control and it will not be possible to re-link them . To a listing Strike Off go to View Log, find the listing you want to strike off in the Active Listings tab > right click on the record > Strike Off.

Remove listing from pending relist

You can remove listing from Pending Relist by going to View Log > Pending Relist tab > find the listing > right click on the record > Remove From Pending. The actual listing on eBay will not be affected in any way.

Export Listings

A full list of the listings can be exported to a csv file. Right-click on the list and selecting “Export …." option. Select the location and file name then pick the fields that are required to be exported. Click on the Export button to complete the process.  

 

Bulk Import for Strike Off/Remove Pending

You can import a list of listings that need to be removed from pending or stuck off from active listings. The file needs to be a simple list of listing numbers (one Listing per row).  Right-Click on the list and select “Import…..” option. Select the file and then choose the column that holds the ListingID number. Click on OK to complete the process.