TABLE OF CONTENTS
Overview
If you have a single variant product in your eCommerce Store that we import and push it to a marketplace as a single variant, and you later add a variant to that product so it becomes a multi variant the next time that product updates it will (in most cases} be removed from the marketplace. Most markets cannot and do not handle product changes that are single product listings to multi variant listings.
The same applies if you have a multi variant product that becomes a single product with no variants, again same rule applies, most markets will zero-out the product or not update the product if they detect a change in the product type (multi to single).
This is not a change Omnivore makes, it is a listing rule marketplaces apply that the API adheres to. There are no tools or features in Omnivore that can help you fix this if it happens.
The best advice we suggest is to not change a product in your eCommerce Store from single to multi or vice versa. See 'Note' in the 'Fix' section below.
When you create a new product in your eCommerce Store, the product has a product ID, if there is a variant that variant will have an ID also.
We push products and product ID's to the marketplaces as a SKU. The SKU is either just a parent SKU or a parent SKU and a Variant SKU.
If the marketplace detects any change to ANY SKU connected to a parent SKU it will in most cases cause an error and a delisting can occur, this will result in the product showing in Omnivore with a listing error.
Outcomes and Errors
When this occurs you are likely to see the following things happen:
- A marketplace listing will not be live on the market and it will have an error in Omnivore.
- An order is in Omnivore but not in your eCommerce Store, the order error will be something like 'Product Not Found'. See point 5.
- The marketplace will not relist the product because it still thinks the product is either a single or multi variant.
- The product 'appears' updated but the marketplace still rejects it.
- You will experience an oversell because the product on the marketplace cannot be updated by us due to SKU structure change.
How to Fix
If you have any of the outcomes and errors the first thing to note is that there is no 'magic fix'. Note: if you do need to make a change like this to a product in your eCommerce Store, we suggested deleting the original product and recreating with a new structure. This is a more cleaner way than editing an existing SKU structure.
For each marketplace we have FAQ's called 'Common Listing Errors' and each one of them cover this scenario with fix options you can follow.
Click Here and type in 'common listing errors' to find the marketplace specific FAQ you need. This is the best place to start.
If you do reach out to us for help please provide the product name, exact error, product SKU and any errors you can see in the marketplace.
Recommended Reading
We have other FAQ's that summarize and re-address this issue written for specific marketplaces. While this issue is generic each marketplace has slightly different ways of handling a change like this. We highly recommend reading these if you are having this problem.
Order Errors - product SKU not found
Relative to eBay and other marketplaces