- A Rakuten channel integrated in Linnworks;

- Products in Linnworks must have an Extended Property to show the user wishes to list them on Rakuten. The name of this Extended Property should be in the following format: RAKUTENNAMEenable and the value should be YES. For example, if your Rakuten channel's name in Linnworks is RakutenUK, then extended property name should be RakutenUKenable and its value should be YES (Fig. 1.1).

- Inventory items must have Extended Properties for all the correct Rakuten-related data to create the listing properties.

- The columns exported by the script will need to be mapped to the respective Extended Properties that your items have in Linnworks (Fig. 1.2). Information on Rakuten's categories and attributes can be found here.

1. Navigate to Settings tab, and select Macros.

2. Click on the Add From Template button on the right. Select Rakuten, then Inventory. Finally, select Rakuten Export and click the Next button.

3. This will open the Script Designer window. The following data is required for the script to work:

a. Channel - This should be the Rakuten account name, as displayed in the Linnworks Channel Integration screen, as the SubSource/Name of your Rakuten channel. This will appear in the output file under the Channel column (Fig 2.0).

b. There are a total of 71 parameter names to be mapped against the Rakuten-specific Extended Properties that your items have stored against them in Linnworks. The script will export each Parameter Name as a separate column in the output file, and the values in the mapped Extended Properties will be the Column values. Leave the Value field blank where there is no Extended Properties in Linnworks to match.

Example: If you do not have a Linnworks Extended Property for shipping_instructions, then leave the Value field empty for this parameter;

If the required Extended Property for Rakuten exists, then enter name for this extended property in the Value field;

Example: The stock item should have an Extended Property called Category For Rakuten, and the value for the Extended Property is 58796 (A category ID on Rakuten), then you need to enter Category For Rakuten in the Value field against the Rakuten Category parameter name. Then in the export file, the row for that item will have 58796 as its Rakuten Category. The full Category list can be downloaded directly from Rakuten's website.

c. Once all the Rakuten-specific Extended Properties are mapped, the FileName parameter should be entered. Here, the user should enter their desired name for the output file (Fig. 2.1). An example for FileName is RakutenInventoryFile.csv

d. Location is the last parameter name. Here, the user should specify the path for the location on the computer where the exported file should be saved after the script is executed (Fig. 2.1). An example of file location is C:\myfolder.

The script will work through all the items in the Linnworks inventory, and export a file with all the items that have the Extended Property RAKUTENNAMEenable (see Prerequisites) set to YES in the specified location on the computer.

4. Once finished, click the Validate button. If no mistakes have been detected during validation, a window will pop-up asking for confirmation.

5. Press Continue to finish configuring the script.

6. The Rakuten Inventory Export script will appear in the scripts list at the very bottom, marked as Enabled.

Essential Fields

These fields must be populated or added for all items that are to be processed bt the Script:

• The RAKUTENNAMEenable Extended Property
• The Attribute 1 Extended Property (Only variation child needs it)
• The Category For Rakuten Extended Property (child item will obtain it from the parent/base sku.)
• A valid Title, Price and Description.

The Exported File will have both a SKU and BaseSKU column. For individual items, The BaseSKU will contain the SKU of the item, and SKU will be empty. For Variation Items, the SKU holds the Variation Child SKU, and the BaseSKU holds the Variation Parent SKU.

What is a Valid Title, Price and Description?

When importing the Title, Description and Price for the Rakuten Listing, then the script considers the Channel-specific values first (Source/SubSource), then those for the Default source, then the Item Title, MetaData and Retail Price, in the order below:

• 1st - Channel specific (Source and SubSource) value exists in the Listing Description tab (Fig. 3.1)
• 2nd - Default value exists in the Listing Descriptions tab (Fig. 3.2)
• 3rd - The Title, MetaData, Retail Price from the Description tab. 

The script will use the first of each type it finds (Title, Description and Price) for each SKU. 

eg 

If there is a Channel Specific Title, it will be used and the Default and Item Titles will not be checked. 

If there is a Default Price, but no Channel Specific Price, then the script will check for a Channel Specific price, and on finding it isn't present it will check the Default Price, use that and not check the Retail Price.

These checks occur for each item, and their Title, Description and Price could come from a mix of the above fields, depending which have been entered for each SKU with the Extended Property RAKUTENNAMEenable.

SKU Size and Weight

The Exported File will contain the following information from the Postage Definition tab (Inventory Item Edit view):

• Height
• Width
• Depth
• Weight

The Height, Width and Depth must be stored in cm for Rakuten. The Weight should be in grams - Rakuten will recalculate this on the listing if the shop Default Weight is set to Stone, lb or kg.

All items for export should have an Extended Property named Attribute 1. This should contain the name of the main Extended Property. For example, if selling toys, then Attribute 1 should be set as Age.