Get more detailed info about the inventory synchronization process developed to fit all businesses' needs.
StoreAutomator has a detailed inventory synchronization process to fit all businesses' needs. The below chart depicts the logic of the inventory sync process.
As seen in Figure 1, StoreAutomator has two levels of control for your products:
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Inventory Level is the list of your products for all channels. This is your major product list, and everything is included in this database,
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Channel Products Level, is a specific list of products that belong only to the specific channel. You can make any changes you like. You can override the data at channel level which are originally set under inventory level. You can revise the product title, description, change prices, override SKUs if you have a different SKU for that specific channel.
In addition, inclusion control switches the ability to control a product whether to be included or excluded in that particular channel. These settings are located at:
Channel Menu > Inclusion control.
Figure 1 explains the logic of how these switches work.
There are two types of inclusion control:
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Brand Inclusion includes or excludes a brand which may have many products in it,
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Product Inclusion includes or excludes only one product and its children.
Simply include a brand or a product in a particular channel by clicking on “Include” and exclude by clicking on the “Exclude” button.
Setting the control to “Default” employs the “Include All Inventory” switch, which is located at Channel > Channel Settings > Common, under the Sync tab.
If the “Include All Inventory” switch is enabled then the system includes brands or products; and if the switch is disabled, it will not include any brands or products on that channel.
When a change is made make sure to click on the button “Update Channel Contents” to reflect changes to Channel Products Database
To read more about inclusion control please refer to the “Inclusion Control” Article.
Product Sync Enabled switch is the Master Sync Switch and performs the syncing (both Creation and Update type sync), only if it is set to “Enabled”. It is located at Channel Settings > Common, General Tab. Please refer to Figure 1 to see the logical position of this switch in the StoreAutomator System.
When this switch is enabled, syncing occurs in the shortest time interval allowed by the channel; e.g. for Amazon, aggressive syncing frequency is every 4 minutes.
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If you are working on your product descriptions and data formatting, keep this switch at “Disabled” until you are done and completely ready to upload your products to your sales channel.
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If you have existing product listings on your channels, and just switched to StoreAutomator and you think that your downloaded product listings are faulty, keep this switch “Disabled” until all your product listings are corrected.
In this way, you can still sell, get orders from the channel and attend to them, while also working on your product descriptions and correcting them. During this period, the only thing you need to fix by hand is the quantity and the price of your items on your sales channel. When you are done correcting your listings, switch this to “Enabled”, set the below-mentioned update settings correctly and your listings will be updated automatically.
During the syncing process, the StoreAutomator system compares The Channel To Be Updated with the Channel Products Level settings and creates a sequence of updates listed below, and sends them to the channel:
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Products to be created, new products to be added to the remote database,
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Products to be updated, product description updates to be done on the remote database,
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Products to be deleted, products to be deleted from the remote database,
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Products for Quantity Update, update quantity if it was changed,
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Products for Price Update, update Price if it was changed.
For all these Lists, there are respective control switches located at Channel > Channel Settings > Common and in the Sync tab. Set the below switch to the below value to achieve:
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Products to be created, Allow Product Creation: Enabled,
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Products to be updated, Allow Product Update: Enabled,
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Products to be deleted, Allow Product Deletion: Enabled,
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Products for Quantity update, Enable Updates: Inventory Enabled,
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Products for Price update, Enabled Updates: Price Enabled
On Amazon Channels, turn on the Quantity and Price Update switch to “Enabled”, to employ Amazon Repricer’s effects; as products price listed on Amazon channels may be changed by StoreAutomator’s Repricer and every time syncing happens the new price will be instituted.
Allow Product Deletion switch is a notable one as, once it is enabled, it will remove all applicable listings from your sales channel if not included, as such, we advise caution using it.
Note that Products to be Created and Deleted requires the “Publish Enabled” switch in the “Enabled” position, which is located at Menu > Settings > Global Content Settings. If this switch is in the “Disabled” position the Internal lists for these pathways will not be created and therefore cannot be sent to the remote channel during a sync operation. This is a protection switch on deleting products and adding new products, as both should be done with discretion.
Example:
Let’s give an example to explain how these switches work. In your databases, let’s say you have the following items:
Channel Products (Source Database): 1, 2, 3, x, y
Remote Channel Product Listings (Target Database): 4, x, y, z
> Allow Product Creation, creates items 1, 2, 3 in your Target database and don’t do anything with x, y; because they are already present in the Target database,
> Allow Product Update, updates x, y with all the information in your Target Database, and don’t do anything with 1, 2, 3, 4, z; because they are neither created in the Target nor present in the source database,
> Allow Product Deletion, Deletes 4, z in your Target database, and don’t do anything with x, y, 1, 2, 3, because they exist is the source database,
> Enabled Updates: Product Data, Updates Product Data for x, y and does not add 1, 2, 3 to Target Database, or change 4, z values,
> Enabled Updates: Inventory, Updates Quantity for x, y and does not add 1, 2, 3 to Target database, or change 4, z values,
> Enabled Updates: Price, Updates Price for x, y and does not add 1, 2, 3 to Target database, or change 4, z values,
> Enabled Updates: Images, Updates Images for x, y and does not add 1, 2, 3 to Target Database, or change 4, z values,
Remember, all these switches work if Master Sync Switch was enabled.