M2E Pro Version - 6.5.4
2019-03-04
Support for Walmart Marketplace
With this Module version, M2E Pro introduces a new intelligent approach to the synchronization process. Please follow the links below to find more details.
Common Changes
Changes in the top navigation menu
With this version, M2E Pro introduces a new Channel integration - Walmart Marketplace. This enhancement has caused some interface changes. Now, the primary menu shows Channel Integrations that you have enabled in the Module. Once you click one, you will get a sub-menu which lists Listings, Sales, Logs, and Configuration sections related to a particular Integration:
To enable/disable Channel integration, navigate to System > Configuration > M2E Pro > Channels.
Products
Support for Magento Downloadable Product
Have you been waiting to start selling digital goods (i.e. music or video files, eBooks, downloadable software, etc.) on eBay/Amazon Channel? Starting from this version, M2E Pro supports Magento Downloadable Product. You can now list your digital goods the same way as the physical items are listed.
Before placing a new listing on the channel, you have the option to choose the way you want your virtual product to be purchased. You should use Links can be purchased separately to define your preferences:
- Select No to offer the Item as a single download. The Item will be processed by M2E Pro as a Simple Product.
- Set Yes to make each included link/file sold separately. The Item will be processed by M2E Pro as a Variational Product.
In this latter case, each variation can be offered at the additional charge:
While the buyers will be able to purchase certain Item variations at its individual price:
Correct work with Magento multistore functionality
Using the 3rd party tools for inventory management in your multistore Magento could cause certain problems. For example, QTY changes made on the store or website level were not detected by M2E Pro. It happened because M2E Pro supports standard Magento where the stock is global-based.
Improvements in the new Module version make it possible for M2E Pro to detect such stock updates.
Automatic reducing of long SKU value
eBay and Amazon have the length limit for SKU value: 50 and 40 alphanumeric characters respectively. If an SKU value length exceeds these thresholds, the error might occur.
For example, each Variation of a Bundle Product has a complex SKU, which includes the SKUs of related Child Products. In some cases, the overall length of the Bundle Variation SKU could be too long and exceed the Channel limitations. This prevents the Item from being listed successfully.
Starting from this release, M2E Pro cuts the long SKU values automatically to suit Channel requirements. As a result, the SKU value will be accepted by eBay/Amazon and the Item will be listed successfully.
Orders
Automatic retries to create a Magento Order
Using external modules may have an impact on Magento. For example, it can affect the process of Magento Order creation: the improper Mail Service configurations will prevent the successful creation of a Magento order.
In the new version, M2E Pro will initiate an automatic retry to create a Magento Order if the initial attempt failed. It is very likely that the Order will be created during the following automatic retries.
The mechanism of automatic retries does not cause double Orders created in Magento for the same Channel Sales imported through M2E Pro.
If several successive attempts fail, M2E Pro stops repeating the action. The detailed information about retries made can be found in Order Logs.
M2E Pro may try to create Magento Order again if a corresponding Channel Order is updated with some changes.
Keeping Product Quantity reserved until Magento Order is created
Stock availability is crucial when processing an Order. For the efficient inventory management, M2E Pro has Item Quantity reservation which holds the stock of a product until Magento Order is created or the reservation period expires. After an Order is imported from the Channel and the Order creation rules are not met yet, M2E Pro reserves the purchased quantity until a Magento Order can be created.
Previously, if Magento Order could not be created for some reasons, the product QTY was not reserved. Sometimes this could lead to overselling and inability to fulfill the order.
In this release, M2E Pro has been improved to keep the Item Quantity reserved if Magento Order creation fails. It allows sellers to guarantee the supply availability, especially for Products of high consumer demand or during the peak season.
This can be even more useful taking into account the newly introduced automatic retries of Magento Order creation.
Item Quantity will remain reserved for the time period you specify in your Account configuration will be canceled after the reservation term expires or released prior to creating Magento Order.
Automatic release of the reserved Item quantity if the Channel Order is canceled
Previously, if the Order was canceled on the Channel, the reserved Item quantity was not released until the Reservation period ended.
Starting from this version, Module behavior has been changed. The reserved Item quantity is released automatically right after the Order is canceled on the Channel.
Unexpected behavior of QTY reservation feature
Magento Inventory management is allowed by enabling of Manage Stock and Decrease Stock When Order is Placed options under System > Configurations > Catalog > Inventory:
In previous Module versions, the QTY reservation worked regardless of these option configurations. In some cases, this caused Exceptions on the Magento side.
In the current release, the Module behavior has been changed. M2E Pro reserves the Item quantity only if both Manage Stock and Decrease Stock When Order is Placed options are enabled in your Magento. No Magento Exceptions occur after this improvement is made.
Channel Orders created more than 180 days ago are archived automatically
Users who have managed their Products via M2E Pro for a long period of time could be experienced with an improper work of Sales section. It is caused by a large number of imported Orders within a grid. It could take a considerable time to open/update the Order grid.
To prevent this, the Channel Orders created more than 180 days ago are being archived now. This allows reducing the time for the grid opening and Order processing.
The archived Orders will not be available within the Extension interface. If you need to get the archived Orders, please contact M2E Pro Support.
Listings
Auto Add/Remove Rules can be run by changing product Website via Update Attributes action
Auto Add/Remove Rules make Product management process for eBay and Amazon integrations more efficient. The Rules are made of conditions which determine when a Magento Product should be automatically added or deleted from an M2E Pro Listing.
The Module can monitor the fact of adding a new Product to your Magento Catalog as well as the changes made to the Website/Category of certain Magento Product. However, in previous versions, the Website changes were tracked only if they made to each Product separately. While the mass updating of the Website parameter was not detected by the Extension.
M2E Pro Team continuously enhance the existing features. Starting from the current version, the Module detects the changes made to the Product Website via the mass action Update Attributes. This means that Auto Add/Remove Rules can be triggered by the mass updating of Product Website. Use this feature to allocate the Products among the different M2E Pro Listings in a quick and time-saving way.
Mapped 3rd Party Items can now be filtered out
Managing the 3rd Party Items has become more convenient. A new filter option Mapped lets you filter out the already mapped items to quickly proceed with their moving to M2E Pro Listing.
Grid performance has been significantly increased
We are proud that more and more merchants entrust the management of their big-sized inventories to M2E Pro. When a Listing contains the high number of Items with constantly changing data, the grid performance comes to the fore.
In this Module version, the loading speed of Listing grids has been increased up to 100 times. This helps to keep the relevance of M2E Pro Listing grids to the Channel Item data.
Make your search results more precise using the new filter options in the Listing grids: Listing Type, Account and eBay Site.
Moving of the 3rd party items has been improved
Simultaneous moving of 10k+ items might cause too much load on Extension and subsequent interruption of the action.
With this release, the Module has balanced the load and increased the processing capacity of the item data. It guarantees a safe Item transferring from the 3rd Party Listing to M2E Pro Listing.
Changes in UI behavior when adding products to M2E Pro Listing
Starting from this version, you need to assign Channel category to at least one product when adding Magento Products to M2E Pro Listing. Until then, you cannot proceed to the following step. Continue button will be disabled as the screen below shows:
Please be advised that in eBay and Walmart integrations, Magento Products without category data will not be added to M2E Pro Listing. It is because products must be associated with the Channel category to be listed on eBay/Walmart.
In Amazon integration, if you are going to list a new ASIN, you should set Description Policy to at least one product to proceed. Yet, the rest products with no ASIN assigned or without Description Policy will still be added to Listing. You can assign ASIN/Description Policy for the Listing Products later.
Provided changes will optimize your interaction with the Module and help to avoid unnecessary actions.
Synchronization Policy
Updated Revise conditions in Synchronization Policy
In the previous M2E Pro versions, automatic updates of the product changes could be performed by a Full or Partial Revise. There were two separate blocks of Revise settings in Synchronization Policy: the Partial and Full Revise conditions. The problem could come up if the settings for the Full Revise would contradict the Partial Revise conditions.
For example, the Full Revise by Description caused an update of all parameters related to the Product description, including the Title, Subtitle, etc. While in the Partial Revise conditions, some of those parameters were disabled, therefore, were not supposed to be updated. Please see the image below.
Besides, you had to keep in mind that changes made to Magento Product triggered only the Partial Revise. Whereas to initiate the Full Revise, the Policy Template must be changed.
Starting from this Module version, you have a single list of Revise Conditions. The new logic of data revising is that each Revise Condition relates to the certain Product property. Once the Revise Condition is enabled, Module starts to trigger the changes made to this property in both Policy Template settings and Magento Attribute set for this property in Policy Template. This means you spend less time and efforts for configuring. Instead, you get more flexibility and accuracy in the processing of updates.
For example, if you enable the Revise by Title, any change made to the related Description Policy settings or Magento Attribute set for Title in Description Policy will initiate the automatic Title update on the Channel. If the Title condition is disabled, it will never be updated by automatic synchronization.
Revise
The screenshot below shows the updated Revise Rule settings within eBay integration:
- Quantity - automatically revises Item Quantity on eBay when Product Quantity, Magento Attribute used for Item Quantity or Custom Quantity value are modified in Magento or Policy Template. The Quantity management is the basic functionality the Magento-to-eBay integration is based on and it cannot be disabled.
- Price - automatically revises Item Price on eBay when Product Price, Special Price or Magento Attribute used for Item Price are modified in Magento or Policy Template.
- Title - automatically revises Item Title on eBay when Product Name, Magento Attribute used for Item Title or Custom Title value are modified in Magento or Policy Template.
- Subtitle - automatically revises Item Subtitle on eBay when Magento Attribute used for Item Subtitle or Custom Subtitle value are modified in Magento or Policy Template.
- Description - automatically revises Item Description on eBay when Product Description, Product Short Description or Custom Description value are modified in Magento or Policy Template.
- Images - automaticallyrevisesItem Images on eBay when Product Image(s) or Magento Attribute used for Product Image(s) are modified in Magento or Policy Template.
- Categories/Specifics - automatically revises Item Categories/Specifics on eBay when Categories/Specifics data or Magento Attributes used for Categories/Specifics are modified.
- Shipping - automatically revises Item Shipping information on eBay when a Shipping Policy Template or Magento Attributes used in the Shipping Policy Template are modified.
- Payment - automatically revises Payment information on eBay when the Payment Policy Template is modified.
- Return - automatically revises Return information on eBay when the Return Policy Template is modified.
- Other - automatically revises Item Condition, Condition Note, Taxation, Best Offer, and Charity information on eBay when the related data is modified in Policy Templates.
The new Revise Rule settings for Amazon integration are shown in the following screenshot:
- Quantity - automatically revises Item Quantity, Production Time, Restock Date on Amazon when the related values are modified in Magento, Policy Template or Listing Settings accordingly. The Quantity management is the basic functionality the Magento-to-Amazon integration is based on and it cannot be disabled.
- Price - automatically revises Item Price on Amazon when Product Price, Special Price or Magento Attribute used for Product Price are modified in Magento or Policy Template.
Once the Module detects any change related to the Property enabled in Revise Rules, the Revise action will be scheduled.
Product Quantity option is permanently enabled in Revise Rules
Maintenance of uninterrupted Inventory and Order synchronization is the primary task of M2E Pro. Magento-to-Channel integration largely depends on QTY parameter: it is required when you list the Item first or when you need to stop it because of out of stock, when the customer makes a purchase or when you fulfill the order, etc. The actual QTY is highly important to be sure you maintain enough level of stock availability.
According to the points above, starting from the current version, QTY option is permanently enabled in Revise Rule settings and cannot be switched off. This means that QTY value will be updated each time after it is modified in your Magento.
Enable/Disable switch for Stop Rules
The Stop Rules in Synchronization Policy define the conditions under which you want to stop selling your Items on the Channel. M2E Pro will automatically stop an Item as soon as one of those conditions is met.
To give you more flexibility, starting from the current version, you have an additional switch to say M2E Pro whether automatic Stop Rules should be applied to your Items or not.
Product updates are scheduled for the processing
There is a major change to the logic of M2E Pro synchronization mechanism in the new version. Now the Product changes are ranked and processed based on the level of their importance.
After the Product is modified, the Module detects this event and compares it with your Synchronization Rules. If at least one sync condition is met, appropriate action will be scheduled. This means that all scheduled actions are already verified according to your sync settings and planned for the processing.
Within the Listing grid, users are able to see what the action is being scheduled at the moment for the specific Item. This helps to be aware of any inventory updates. For example, if the Revise conditions are met, the automatical Revise will be scheduled. You will see the appropriate label next to the Item indicated which parameter is going to be updated.
Before to be processed, all scheduled actions are ranked based on their priority. It allows performing urgent actions first. For example, the out-of-stock Item will be stopped before the Module submits a new Item to the Channel.
After the scheduled action is taken into processing, the Action in Progress label will be displayed instead.
It can take some time to display the Action is Scheduled label within the Listing grid after you save the changes to a product. During the waiting time, the Module processes the queue of changes.
When the action is already in progress, it cannot be interrupted. On the other hand, the scheduled action can be replaced with another one if necessary.
Manual actions have higher priority. When the manual and automatic updates are submitted to the single Item simultaneously, the manual request will be taken into processing while the automatic one will be skipped.
Improved performance of Relist action
It is important to get Items Stopped on the Channel after they are sold out. On the other hand, having the Item Relisted as soon as it is restocked is also important.
Previously, users could enable 'Synchronize Data' under Relist Rules to get a full update of the product information on the Channel. It could take a long time to process all the Product changes, i.e. title, subtitle, description, price, quantity, shipping, etc. before the Item would eventually be Relisted on the Channel.
The Relist action with 'Synchronize Data' enabled greatly impacted the sync performance. In some cases, this could prevent Module from submitting crucial updates made to other Products in your catalog. For example, Amazon strictly limits the number of requests that can be made to their API and it is highly important to rank the data to be sent first.
According to the points above, the M2E Pro Team has decided to no longer support the 'Synchronize Data' option in Relist Rules settings.
Instead, to enhance sellers' experience, M2E Pro has significantly improved the sync mechanism and the Relist action as well. Starting from the current version, only Product QTY and Price, as the most valuable parameters, are submitted on Relist action. The rest data is updated later based on your Revise settings. This allows Module to process the Relist action almost immediately and reactivate the Item on the Channel with only essential information.
To submit the actual price and quantity values, you must enable the Price option in your Revise Rules.
Items moved from 3rd Party Listing or another M2E Pro Listing are synchronized based on Synchronization Rules
When the Item is moved from 3rd Party Listing or another M2E Pro Listing, it comes under control of the new Listing Settings.
Previously, to automatically revise the moved Items according to the new Listing Settings, the related data must be changed first. This means that information on the Channel could disagree with your Magento data or Listing Settings for some time after the Item had been moved.
To make your moved Items compliance with your Listing Settings without delay, the Revise action will be scheduled automatically right after the Item has been placed to certain M2E Pro Listing. This guarantees the correctness of your Channel data.
Enable/Disable switch for automatic synchronization
You may choose from two ways to sync your Magento Product data to the Channel: automatically or manually. Set your preferences for each integration separately under the eBay/Amazon/Walmart > Configuration > Synchronization:
If your Product data is constantly changed throughout the day, you may achieve the best results using the automatic way of data sync. M2E Pro delivers a reliable mechanism for tracking Product changes and submitting updates to the Channel on a regular basis. The automatic Synchronization Rules gives you great convenience and flexibility. Take all the advantages of them.
If you disable the Inventory Synchronization, you will be required to monitor the Product changes by yourself and timely update the related information on the Channel.
Manual synchronization
The enhancements made to Magento-Channel synchronization affect the manual actions at some points. Let's see the most important ones below.
Starting from the current version, M2E Pro submits the following data during the manual synchronization:
- manual List - submits the full Magento Product data;
- manual Revise - updates the full Product data on the Channel regardless of Revise Rules settings;
- manual Relist - submits the Item QTY and Price values, as well as the current variations of Variational Item;
- manual Stop - submits the Item QTY = 0.
After the manual action is applied, it will be scheduled for the processing likewise the automatic updates.
The simultaneous update of 10 or fewer Products on eBay Channel is processed in a real-time mode, but if more - the actions will be scheduled by M2E Pro. All the Product changes submitted to Amazon manually will be scheduled regardless of their number. It is because of Amazon API throttling.
Once the action is scheduled, you will see the Action is Scheduled label next to the related Items. The Item updates will be processed based on their priority.
When the action is already in progress, it cannot be interrupted. On the other hand, the scheduled action can be replaced with another one if necessary.
When the manual and automatic updates are submitted to a single Item simultaneously, the manual action has a primacy. For example, if the automatic Relist conditions are met, but a user manually applies the List action to this Item, exactly the List action will be scheduled and processed by the Module.
There is one exception: the automated Stop action has a higher priority than manual Revise action. Because it is senseless to update the Item which must be stopped on the Channel.
It is important to consider that the manual actions do not cancel the automatic Synchronization Rules. For example, if you have manually stopped the Item, but the Relist conditions are met, the Item will be automatically Relisted next.
To prevent the manually stopped Item from being automatically Relisted, configure your Relist Rules as the image below shows:
Please apply the manual synchronization actions only in case of extreme necessity. Instead, we highly recommend using the automatic sync mechanism. M2E Pro Synchronization Rules provides you with a precise, timely and reliable listing updating.
Configurations
Automatic price currency conversion for Magento Attribute with Price input type
Starting from the current M2E Pro version, you are able to use a new feature of Automatic Price Currency Conversion for Magento Attributes with Price input type. It allows selling on the different regional marketplaces without a need to recalculate the Prices/Costs in local currency.
If you are going to list your Product on the Marketplaces which have different Base Currency and Product Price/Shipping Cost value or Shipping Surcharge (for eBay only) are set to be taken from Magento Attribute with Price input type, enable the automatic currency conversion first. Navigate to the System > Configuration > M2E Pro > General > Price and switch to Yes the Convert Magento Price Attribute option.
An automatic conversion will be applied to the value set in Magento Attribute with Price input type, which you choose from Magento Attribute group of the drop-down.
Convert Magento Price Attribute feature affects the next product parameters:
eBay Integration | |
Selling Policy | • Price • Strike-Through Price • Minimum Advertised Price |
Shipping Policy | • Cost • Additional Cost • Surcharge (for Flat type of Domestic Shipping provided by FedEx and UPS Services) |
Amazon Integration | |
Selling Policy | • Price • Sale Price • Minimum Advertised Price |
Description Policy | • MSRP / RRP |
Walmart Integration | |
Selling Policy | • Price • Minimum Advertised Price • Promotion Price • Comparison Price • Shipping Cost (Overrides) |
Description Policy | • MSRP / RRP |
The conversion will be performed based on Base Currency and Currency Rates of your Magento. Find the details on how to provide the currency settings in Magento documentation.
Ability to discard all previously remembered choices made by users
M2E Pro allows remembering the specified settings for some Module options. It allows optimizing your time resources while working with the Module.
For example, the system allows remembering your selection of All Products Same Category option at the Set eBay Category step to skip it in the future. It significantly simplifies and speeds up adding new Products to the Listings. However, if you need to change these preferences later, you will have to edit eBay Category settings for each Product separately. Otherwise, the new Listing with other parameters should be created. Previously, there was no way to reset the 'Remember my choice' settings.
Starting from the current M2E Pro version, an ability to discard all your remembered choices has been added. This functionality makes your settings more flexible.
When you need to reset the remembered choices, navigate to System > Configuration > M2E Pro > General > Interface and press the Restore all Helps & Remembered choices. It will restore the default state of parameters: the help blocks will be shown in the interface again while the previously remembered choices will be discarded.
After the Restore all Helps & Remembered choices button is pressed, all Remember my choice settings will be discarded.
The help block state is now stored in local storage instead of a cookie
When you configure the Module interface, e.g. to show/hide the help blocks, your preferences are remembered and considered each time you open your Magento. In the previous Module versions, this was achieved by using cookie functionality. Given that cookie has to be included in every server-client request, an extra load may be added to the page. The more elements are customized, the larger cookie amount has to be submitted.
Recently Magento has provided the cookie limits on their version 2.x.x. This causes some users to face an error "Unable to send the cookie. Maximum number of cookies would be exceeded" after they migrate their M2E Pro data from Magento v1.x.x to Magento v2.x.x.
Because of this situation and following our users' requests, M2E Pro has changed the way of data storing. Starting from the current version, the state of Extension interface elements is stored in local storage instead of the cookie. This functionality provides greater storage capacity without affecting the website performance. The changes you made are saved and available each time you visit the site. Magento error has no longer occur.
Changes in License obtaining
Starting from November 2015, all M2E Pro customers must have an active subscription to one of the available Pricing Plans. If you do a fresh installation of M2E Pro Module, your customer account and Extension Key will be registered on the Client’s Portal automatically.
Each Extension Key undergoes validation based on Domain name and IP address. This is done to prevent inconsistent access to your data. It also protects from the risk of the synchronization being performed from several instances simultaneously.
If you change your Magento location, you will need to obtain a new Extension Key on https://help.m2epro.com/en/support/home and update it in the Admin Panel of your Magento: System > Configuration > M2E Pro > Billing Info. Press Use Another Key, enter the new Key value and Refresh the data. Your current IP, Domain will be automatically associated with the new Extension Key.
Other
Technical support for Magento CE versions lower than 1.5.1.0 and Magento EE versions lower than 1.10.1.0 is no longer provided
M2E Pro Extension can be used with all versions of Magento CE/EE from 1.x onwards, including versions 2.x. Based on our users' experience, many sellers have already moved to Magento v2.x after it was announced in November 2015, while other merchants use the latest versions of Magento 1. The number of M2E Pro users which have Magento CE versions lower than 1.5.1.0 and Magento EE versions lower than 1.10.1.0 can be considered negligible. However, the technical support for the old Magento versions still takes a lot of time. Herewith, the need to maintain the Module compatibility with the old Magento versions constrains the further M2E Pro development.
Taking into account the points above, M2E Pro Team stops the official support for Magento CE versions lower than 1.5.1.0 and Magento EE versions lower than 1.10.1.0 to enhance the technical servicing of Magento up-to-date versions.
Compatibility with PHP v7.2.x
M2E Pro is now compatible with PHP v7.2.x. The relevant changes have been implemented and fully tested.
eBay Integration
Products
Compliance with eBay Product-based Shopping Experience
Last year, eBay already expanded their requirements to provide product identifiers (brand, MPN, and GTIN) for Items listed in certain categories. Apparently, last year enforcement is an early stage of the change that eBay recently introduced. Beginning in Spring 2018, a product-based search is launched on the US, UK, AU, CA [English] and DE eBay sites.
The new shopping experience requires all merchants to associate their Items with the products in the eBay catalog. In order to list/revise your offers on the channel, you need to provide eBay Product ID (ePID) and a valid GTIN (UPC, ISBN, EAN).
Single Items and each variation in the Multi-SKU Items require a valid eBay Product ID (ePID) in all product-based shopping experience-enabled categories. Otherwise, list/revise of the Item will fail.
eBay will expand the list of enabled categories later in 2019. Please check eBay announcements to stay compliant.
Using M2E Pro, you can send a full set of Product Identifiers for the Single and Variational Items on eBay.
In Description Policy, you can specify the GTIN, ePID, Brand, and MPN values for your Simple, Configurable and Grouped Products:
In Manage Variation pop-up, you can provide eBay Catalog Identifiers for each variation of your Bundle, Downloadable and Simple with Custom Options Products. You will find Manage Variations link in M2E Pro Listing next to a Multi-Variation Product.
Since eBay does not allow removing/replacing product variations after they were sold, M2E Pro has to store the old inactive variations. This allows maintaining the data compliance during the Item updating. To comply with the recent eBay changes, the old inactive variations within affected product lines should also be adapted to the eBay catalog. Otherwise, eBay will restrict the Item revise.
Starting from this version, M2E Pro will collect and store eBay catalog identifiers for the old inactive variations to prevent eBay errors.
However, if any of your listed Items already have old inactive variations, you should fill in the required GTIN/ePID fields manually. Otherwise, eBay will return the error when M2E attempts to revise the Item.
Here is what you should do: navigate to Listing, click Manage Variations link next to the Multi-Variation Item, click Show Old Inactive Variations in a pop-up and enter valid Product Identifiers:
We strongly recommend you to start associating your Items to eBay catalog as soon as possible. As expected, eBay will expand these requirements to more brands and categories in 2019.
Tool to prevent the Item Duplicate issues
According to eBay Duplicate listings policy, two or more Items will be considered duplicate if there is no significant difference between them. eBay restricts to list the Items which have the same Product Identifiers, Titles, Description, etc.
However, sometimes the Item duplicate issue may arise due to the technical reasons. For example, the temporal limitations on the eBay side or a network connection failure can lead to the next situation. After the List/Relist action is submitted to the Channel via M2E Pro, the Module does not get a confirmation from eBay that the operation is completed successfully. In this case, the next automatic synchronization will try to list/relist the Item again. While eBay will consider this attempt as Item duplicate listing and may apply the restrictions to your seller account.
To prevent the scenario described above, M2E Pro Team has developed a special Tool. It detects the potential duplicates during the Item list/relist and prevents the action to be submitted to the Channel. When the Item duplicate is detected, you will see the 'duplicate' mark next to this Listing Item and the related notification.
Click the Duplicate link to open an additional settings pop-up. Select one of the possible solutions:
- Ignore this message for the Item {eBay Item ID} - means that the Item data will be sent to eBay during the next sync to check whether the issue still persists.
- Stop Item {eBay Item ID} on eBay means that the related Channel Item will be automatically stopped on eBay, while this Item will be listed once the List Rules are met.
- Stop Item {eBay Item ID} on eBay and list/relist the current Item - means that the related Channel Item will be automatically stopped on eBay, while this Item will be listed/relisted immediately.
ePID number is now available for the United Kingdom and Germany eBay sites
M2E Pro introduces support for eBay Product ID (ePID) number on the UK and DE eBay sites. Starting from the current version, you have the ability to choose whether ePID or kType values should be applied to the Items listed on the UK, DE eBay sites.
To use Parts Compatibility on UK/DE eBay sites, complete the following steps:
- Under the eBay > Configuration > General, specify the Compatibility Attribute where ePID/kType values should be stored.
- Using the Action menu in the M2E Pro Listing grid, select which Parts Compatibility Mode you are going to use.
You are able to select from two modes:
- ePIDs - is based on the Product Reference IDs of compatible vehicles for this eBay Site.
- kTypes - is based on the common kType data provided by eBay for all Sites (by default).
- Save the changes.
- Use Add Compatible Vehicles Tool within Setting View Mode of your M2E Pro Listing for UK/DE eBay site.
Once all the steps are completed, you can list the parts/accessories associated with compatible vehicles based on ePIDs on UK/DE eBay site.
More than 1000 ePID\kType values can be selected per once now
Before, you could select a maximum of 1000 ePID/kType values per once via the Add Compatible Vehicle tool.
To enhance the user experience, an ability to select up to 3000 compatible vehicles per once has been added. If you need to manage more than 3000 compatible vehicles simultaneously, use one of the following methods:
- save Filter - filter the records by required parameters and click Save Filter. Under the Filters tab, select the saved Filter, apply the Select action, then click Add/Override to associate the filtered compatible vehicles with your Listing Item.
- save Group - select 3000 or fewer records and submit the Save as Group action. Create as many Groups as you need. Under the Group tab, select one or several Group(s), apply the Select action, then click Add/Override to associate the grouped compatible vehicles with your Listing Item.
The improvements mentioned above allows optimizing your work with Parts Compatibility via M2E Pro.
Assigning eBay Category is now required prior to adding a Product to M2E Pro Listing
Previously, defining eBay Category could be skipped when you added Magento Product to the Listing. However, M2E Pro could not list this Product because Category data is required by eBay. You still needed to assign eBay Category and complete the related Specifics. This might cause some delay in Item submitting.
The changes in this version prevent the situation above. Now you have to assign eBay Category to the Product before it is placed in M2E Pro Listing. This allows Module to start managing your Item immediately.
Please check the particular cases at when eBay Category should be specified:
- When you add Magento Products to M2E Pro Listing manually. Magento Products with no eBay Category assigned will not be added to the Listing.
- When you move the 3rd Party Items to M2E Pro Listing. After you map the 3rd Party Item to Magento Product and select M2E Pro Listing, you will be redirected to the Set eBay Category page. Select the most suitable Category and provide the Item Specifics to complete the Item moving.
- When you add Magento Products to M2E Pro Listing using Auto Add/Remove Rules. After you select the level at which M2E Pro should monitor the Product adding/removing, you will be redirected to the 3-step wizard including the Set eBay Category and Item Specific steps. Complete all the steps to save your Rule
Preventing "Duplicate variation custom label" error during renaming Variation Options in Magento
eBay strictly controls the updates submitted to the existing Variational Items. Before, sellers could face the 'Duplicate variation custom label' error after the variational option data is modified. In most cases, this requires listing the Item anew.
With this Module version, M2E Pro introduces substantial enhancements to Variational data processing. The 'Duplicate variation custom label' error no longer arises.
Ignoring spaces in Variation attribute values
Due to the strict requirements for the Variational Product data, eBay may block the Item from being updated on the Channel if there is spare space at the beginning or/and at the end of a Variation attribute value. The resolving of this issue can take considerable time from sellers.
To avoid this issue, M2E Pro Team has developed a specific mechanism which allows ignoring the spare spaces in Variation attribute values if detected. This enhances the seller experience.
The Product Identifiers will be submitted to the Channel if eBay Category starts requiring them
In accordance with the last year enforcement, eBay requires including catalog identifiers into certain categories. Due to this, you might face the error: 'UPC is missing a value. Enter a value and try again', 'EAN is missing a value. Enter a value and try again', etc. during the Item relist or its Price/QTY revise.
Previously, you were forced to run the manual revise to fully update the Item data, including the Product Identifiers. This could be time-consuming in case of a big-sized inventory.
To prevent this scenario, M2E Pro has developed a special tool. It allows automatically detecting the Items for which eBay requires the Product Identifiers and subsequently submitting the necessary data to the Channel. This solution works for both Simple and Multi-Variational Items.
Orders
Notification about Channel changes in the number of ordered Items after Magento Order is already created
When the 'Immediately' option is enabled in the Order Creation Rules, Magento Order will be created right after eBay Order is imported to M2E Pro. This means that any changes made to the Channel Order after checkout is completed will not be reflected in Magento Order as it is already created.
Starting from this version, M2E Pro provides users with an additional notification on this matter. If the Order details are changed on eBay after Magento Order creation, you will see the Log message saying which particular updates have been made. This allows you to stay informed of all Channel Order updates.
Listings
The 3rd Party Listings can be mapped using eBay Item ID
Gain more flexibility when you link your existing eBay store inventory to Magento one. Now you can map your 3rd Party Listings by eBay Item Number. Navigate to eBay > Configuration > Accounts > Account Configuration > 3rd Party Listings > Mapping Settings, select Magento Attribute which stores the eBay Item ID values.
If the Product Mapping is enabled in your Account settings, the imported eBay Listings will be automatically mapped to your Magento Inventory by eBay Item ID.
Improvements in the 3rd Party Item Moving
In rare cases, when the 3rd Party Item was being moved to M2E Pro Listing and the action was interrupted due to some reasons, the Item data could be lost.
Improvements in this Module version prevent the 3rd Party Item data from accidental loss. The Item will be removed from the 3rd Party Listing only after it is successfully moved to M2E Pro Listing.
eBay Item ID URL is generated correctly now
Previously, eBay Item ID link which leads from M2E Pro Listing grid to the appropriate Channel Item could be broken in some cases. The issue has been resolved in this Module version. The related URLs are generated correctly.
Description Policy
M2E Pro attribute of Image URLs can be added to the Custom Description
Starting from this Module version, you can insert the URLs of Base Image along with 12 Gallery Images to the Custom Description:
- Navigate to eBay > Configuration > Policies > Description Policy > Description, select the Custom Value option.
- Under the Custom Inserts, select M2E Pro attribute which contains the required Image URL.
- Click Insert.
Only URLs (e.g. http://mymagento.com/media/catalog/product/image1.jpg) will be added into the Item Description, not HTML code.
To insert the Gallery Image URL to the Custom Description, the Gallery Images option under the Images section should be also enabled.
If you insert the 'Gallery Image Url 10', but only 7 Gallery Images are specified for this Product, the blank space will be added to the Item Description.
The use of secure content in Custom Description can be configured via M2E Pro
Recently, M2E Pro has introduced support for secure content in the Custom Description. This enhancement is related to the new eBay browser security standards.
Before, to enable the use of secure content, you had to set up your Magento appropriately. Starting from this version, you are able to set your preferences via M2E Pro interface.
Navigate to eBay > Configuration > General > Image Uploading, enable the Use Secure Image URLs in Item Description option. The Image URLs added to the Custom Description will be generated using the HTTPS protocol.
Prior to enabling the Use Secure Image URLs in Item Description option, ensure that your Magento has a correctly configured SSL certificate.
We strongly recommend you to ensure that M2E Pro Items are revised appropriately. It will make the full Item description available for your Buyers without the need to click See full item description button.
Ability to open Custom Gallery Images in a new browser tab is no longer available
eBay has announced the Policy Updates aimed to enhance the shopping experience for buyers. An updated Links Policy prohibits the links that take customers off-eBay.
Previously, M2E Pro users were able to make the Custom Gallery opened in a new window. However, eBay considered this as a redirection to the external resource and required users to comply with its Link Policy.
Following eBay restriction, the ability to open Gallery Images in a new browser tab has been removed and starting from the current Module version is no longer available for the Custom Description configuring. If some of your Items have been already listed with this option enabled, they will be updated appropriately during the next automatic Revise.
Selling Policy
Support for eBay Lot functionality
eBay provides sellers with the ability to sell Items in lots. The lot is a set of two or more identical or similar Items that must be purchased together. Selling in lots can be helpful, for example, when your goods are more likely will be sold in bulk than individually or when you need to quickly move your stock. Besides, customers interested in buying in lots may refine eBay search results to review only such kind of offers. This allows increasing your listing exposure on eBay.
To enable the lot format to your eBay listing via M2E Pro, navigate to eBay > Configuration > Policies > Selling Policy > Quantity and Duration. Under the Specify Lot Size option, switch to Custom Value to enter the number of Items in Lot or select an appropriate Magento Attribute.
The Item Quantity information will be reflected on the Channel as shown below:
Lot Size value does not affect the number of ordered Items and Magento Product quantity. It just informs the customers how many Items are included in the Lot they have bought.
Shipping Policy
Support for eBay In-Store Pickup Service
M2E Pro introduces support for eBay In-Store Pickup Service. If you are a large merchant and have the Items stocked in the physical stores, you may join this Service on eBay. It allows you to save on shipping cost, while the buyers can get their purchase without waiting for delivery.
To use In-Store Pickup Service, Sellers should associate their physical stores to their eBay accounts and add the inventory to these stores. The related Items will be flagged directly in the search results. This allows increasing the Item visibility on eBay site.
The prospective buyer will see the "Available for In-Store Pickup" option on the Item page along with the nearest store address. After the purchase is made, the buyer will get a notification that the Item is ready for pickup.
The In-Store Pickup Service is currently available on the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia eBay sites. The feature can only be applied to multi-quantity, fixed-price listings.
How to use the In-Store Pickup feature via M2E Pro?
Once you are approved by eBay to use the In-Store Pickup Service and activate the feature in your M2E Pro by contacting M2E Pro Support Team, complete the following steps:
- Navigate to eBay > Configuration > My Stores and press Add Store to create a new Store.
- Provide detailed information about your Store including Name, Location ID, Phone Number, Location, Business Hours, etc.
- Under the Quantity Settings, select the Quantity source for the Items from this Store:
1) Selling Policy — the quantity settings provided in the Selling Policy will be used.
2) Custom Settings — allows specifying the Quantity source along with the Percentage and Conditional Quantity options.
- After the Store is configured, you can add the Items. Navigate to M2E Pro Listing and click In-Store Pickup Management.
Prior to adding Magento Products to the Store, you should add them to M2E Pro Listing.
- Select the Items and press Assign Products to Store.
Only Items from the current M2E Pro Listing are available for the selection.
After you complete the settings, M2E Pro starts automatically updating the Stock status and Quantity of the Items added to this Store.
The detailed information about In-StorePickup Service feature can be found here.
For appropriate work of In-Store Pickup Service the Click and Collect option must be disabled.
Support for eBay Guaranteed Delivery program
We are glad to announce that starting from the current version M2E Pro users are able to benefit from eBay Guaranteed Delivery program: increased listing exposure, guaranteed delivery terms, therefore, more loyal and satisfied customers. The delivery speed is a crucial customer decision-making criteria. By participating in the Guaranteed Delivery program, you can provide your buyers with the assurance that their purchase comes on time.
eBay Guaranteed Delivery program is currently available on eBay US and Australia sites.
You can select on eBay from two Guaranteed Delivery options:
- Handling time;
- Door-to-door.
Opt-in the Handling time option if you ship from one location and can provide fast order handling. According to Handling time option terms, eBay takes care of the delivery process and customers' service.
There are several qualifiers you should be compliant with to get an eBay Guaranteed Delivery label on your Items:
1. Guarantee the same-day or 1-day handling time.
To specify the required handling timeframes via M2E Pro, use the Shipping Policy settings under the eBay > Configuration > Policies:
2. Define the same-day handling cutoffs. eBay determines an Item delivery date and recompenses buyer for shipping cost or provides with a free return label if an Item delivered late.
3. Ship using eligible carrier services.
4. Add postal code to Item location.
Use the Shipping Policy settings under the eBay > Configuration > Policies:
Performance requirements for sellers offering Handling time option are next:
- A minimum of 97% on-time handling on Guaranteed Delivery transactions.
- A minimum of 95% on-time tracking upload on Guaranteed Delivery transactions.
If you have multi-location warehouses, you may opt into the Door-to-door guarantee. In this case, you are responsible for an Item delivery by a guaranteed date, as well as for refunds and return labels if an item arrives late. eBay accompanies the customers' service.
There are several qualifiers you should be compliant with to get an eBay Guaranteed Delivery label on your Items:
1. Use eBay Shipping Rate Tables for all Guaranteed Delivery Items.
To apply eBay Shipping Rate Tables via M2E Pro, go to eBay > Configuration > Policies > Shipping Policy > Domestic Shipping, select Flat: same cost to all Buyers shipping type and click Download Rate Tables. After the Rate Tables are downloaded, select one to associate with your Items.
The detailed instruction on how to download the new eBay Shipping Rate Tables can be found here.
2. Ship using the eligible carriers for the door-to-door guarantee.
Once all requirements are met, the Guaranteed Delivery program will be activated for the selected Items automatically.
Performance requirements for sellers offering the Door-to-door option are next:
- A minimum of 97% on-time delivery.
- A minimum of 95% on-time tracking upload.
As of today, eBay buyers already can filter the listings to show up only those ones which are guaranteed to arrive in three days or less. You can opt into eBay program and enhance your seller experience together with M2E Pro.
Dispatch Time value in Shipping Policy can be selected from Magento Attribute
Get even more flexibility in your shipping configurations. Starting from the current Module version, you have the ability to set the Dispatch Time value from Magento Attribute. It will allow informing your buyers about a precise handling term for each specific eBay Item.
Return Policy
Support for eBay International Returns Policy
As eBay announced in the 2018 Summer Seller Update, it would enhance a Return Policy options. You can find more detailed information here.
M2E Pro has been improved to support the recent eBay changes. From this Module version, you can set up separate return options for international sales that differ from your domestic return policy. To do this, use an updated M2E Pro Return Policy:
You can provide additional details about your return policy for the Items listed on eBay Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain sites:
Restocking Fee and Extended Holiday Return options have been removed because they are no longer supported by eBay
Synchronization Policy
A larger number of Product changes can be submitted to eBay at once
Before, sellers who have big-sized inventories could face some delay on a mass Item updating. In this version, M2E Pro Team has greatly enhanced the sync performance. This allows sending to eBay a significantly larger number of Product changes per a given amount of time.
The changes of Magento Static Blocks used in the custom description can be tracked now
For quite a long time now the Module has been supporting an ability to insert Magento Static Blocks into the Custom Description. You can complete the Item description with some constant information using the following format:
Starting from the current version, M2E Pro tracks the changes of Magento Static Blocks which are used in Custom Description. Enable the Description option in Revise Rules of your Synchronization Policy to initiate the automatical Item revise every time the related Static Block is modified.
Schedule settings for Item List/Relist have been removed
In the old M2E Pro versions, users were able to schedule the time of automatic Item List/Relist according to the Rules they had set.
In this Module version, M2E Pro developers have removed the Item List/Relist Schedule functionality. This decision is based on the following aspects:
- the feature has been rarely used by sellers before;
- the execute of postponed synchronization processes took a considerable time and technical resources that impact the overall system performance;
- the Schedule settings have become redundant after M2E Pro Team introduces the major enhancements to the Synchronization.
Items which are set to be updated based on the Schedule settings will be automatically Listed/Relisted after you upgrade to the current version.
3rd Party Listing Synchronization feature has been removed
The feature of 3rd Party Listing Synchronization has been available starting from the Module version 6.x.x. For quite a long period of time, you have been able to synchronize your Channel Listings with Magento Product data without a need to move the 3rd Party Items to M2E Pro Listing.
Given that eBay does not return all required Product data (e.g. Quantity for each Variation, etc.) during the 3rd Party Listing import, only certain Product parameters can be managed under 3rd Party Listing Synchronization settings. This makes the 3rd Party Listing Synchronization feature a quite limited.
Besides, since the first Module releases, its functionality has been significantly enhanced. A wide range of Account, Listing, Price, Quantity, Format, Synchronization, Shipping, etc. settings along with the intuitive interface and user guides give you great flexibility and clarity in Product and Sales management.
According to the points above, the 3rd Party Listing Synchronization option seems to become redundant today. Starting from the current version, this feature is no longer available.
Now, to manage your 3rd Party Listings, you should Map the imported Items to the related Magento Products and Move them to M2E Pro Listing. The details can be found here. The moved Items can be updated automatically based on the Sync Rules you have specified.
Configuration
USD currency is no longer supported for Canada site
Since the launch of Canada eBay site, sellers were able to select their listing currency: USD or CAD. M2E Pro users could specify their preferences under eBay > Configuration > General:
However, later eBay.ca announced that it no longer allows merchants to sell on a Canadian site using US dollars. As of today, Canadian dollars is the only acceptable currency when listing the Items on Canada eBay site.
According to eBay restrictions, starting from the current Module version, the ability to select the currency for eBay.ca is no longer available. M2E Pro Listing Products will be listed on Canada eBay site with pricing in CAD.
Amazon Integration
Accounts
Account onboarding process has become easier and faster
To manage Amazon inventory via M2E Pro, you need to grant Module access to your Amazon Account data. Starting from the current version, this procedure has become easier and faster to proceed.
After you accept the MWS License Agreement, the Merchant ID and MWS Auth Token data will be automatically entered into the related fields in your M2E Pro. The detailed instruction can be found here.
Marketplaces
Integration with Amazon Business Program for the US, UK, DE, FR, IT, ES marketplaces
Starting from the current M2E Pro version, Amazon Business functionality becomes available for M2E Pro users. Now you have a great opportunity to increase your business sales on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, Amazon.es via M2E Pro. Amazon Business Programm for the US, UK, DE, FR, IT and ES marketplaces allows all participators to benefit from specific features designed to suit the business needs the best.
Your Business Account must be approved by Amazon before you start using B2B features via M2E Pro.
Take the advantages of B2B sales after configuring your M2E Pro.
Navigate to Amazon > Configuration > General and enable the Price, QTY Discounts option.
Two Selling Types will become available for you within M2E Pro Selling Policy:
- B2C enabled - allows specifying the Regular Price for your Products. Items with B2C Price will be available for both B2B and B2C Customers.
B2B Customers will also see the B2B Price once you additionally enable the ‘B2B Pricing’ type of Selling.
- B2B pricing - allows specifying the Business Price for your Products. B2B Price will be available only for B2B Customers.
B2C Customers will not see these Products if you disable the ‘B2C Enabled’ type of Selling.
After B2B pricing is enabled, you can set the Business Price and Quantity Discounts for your Channel Offers.
Specify the B2B Price by choosing a required Magento Attribute from the drop-down.
Minimum Advertised Price and Sale Price are not supported by Amazon within Business Pricing.
If you want to offer some Discounts for B2B Customers, choose the required way of Discount calculation for multiple Items purchased:
- Product Tier Price - the discounted Price value will be taken from a Tier Price Attribute of Magento Product.
- Custom Value - the discounted Price value will be calculated as a Price from a selected Magento Attribute with a Price Change option applied.
For example, for purchased Products with QTY >= 5 you set: Price = 7£, Price Change = -2,25. Business Buyers will see the next record once they click ‘Request a quantity discount’: QTY >= 5, price 4,75 £, where:
QTY <= 5 is the number of purchased Products to which the Discount will be applied,
price 4,75 £ is the final Price per Product considering the Discount applied (7£ - 2,25).
After configurations are made, assign the Selling Policy to the related M2E Pro Listing for US/UK/DE/FR marketplace.
Amazon Business program for the UK, DE, FR, IT, ES marketplaces includes an ability to join Amazon VAT Calculation Service. It provides sellers with an automatic VAT invoicing for all Channel Orders and with VAT-exclusive price displaying.
After you opt into VAT Calculation Service within your Seller Central Account, you can enable the VAT Calculation Service option in your M2E Pro following the path Amazon > Configuration > Accounts > Account Configuration > VAT Calculation Service.
An ability to disable Magento Invoice Creation for your Channel Sales will become available. Switch to Yes the Disable Magento Invoice Creation option. It will prevent the issue of duplicate invoices.
After enrolling in VAT Calculation Service, the automatic VAT invoicing will become available for your Merchant ID. You will need to disable Magento Invoice Creation within each Account of European Marketplaces. It will prevent the issue of duplicate invoices.
VAT-exclusive price displaying can be achieved by using the Amazon Product Tax Codes.
You can apply them to your Channel Offers via M2E Pro. Choose the required Product Tax Code from the Tax Collection of your Amazon Seller Account and specify it within M2E Pro Product Tax Code Policy as Custom value or via selected Magento Attribute. Then assign the saved Policy to the relevant Products within M2E Pro Listing for the UK, DE, FR, IT, ES marketplaces only.
Once your Item with B2B Price is purchased, the appropriate Channel Order will be imported into M2E Pro and marked with a special label.
All imported B2B Orders can be found under the Amazon > Sales:
To review the detailed information about imported Amazon Business Order, click the required record in the Order grid:
Orders
Using Magento Order number as Your Seller Order ID
When you sell your Magento inventory on the e-retail platform it is important to keep the correspondence between stock levels, Item prices, received orders, etc. With this Module version, M2E Pro provides you with an additional feature of attaching your Magento Order number to Amazon Order details. It will simplify the control of Order accounting.
To do this, navigate to Amazon > Configuration > Accounts > Account Configuration > Orders > Magento Order Number, switch to Yes the Use as Your Seller Order ID option to set Magento Order number as Your Seller Order ID in Amazon Order details:
After Magento Order is created, its number will be submitted to the Channel Order as Your Seller Order ID.
During the first sync after the version upgrade, the Module will send to the Channel the IDs of Magento Orders which have been created a day ago or earlier. Next, the data submitting will be performed on a per-feed basis every 3 hours.
If Your Seller Order ID field in Amazon Order details is already filled, M2E Pro will not replace the existing value by Magento Order ID. Otherwise, the Magento Order ID will be successfully added to the Channel Order as Your Seller Order ID.
In this latter case, you will see the following message next to Magento Order number in Channel Order details:
An automatic Order synchronization is performed up to 3 times in case fails
M2E Pro is set to manage Orders based on the changes. Once the Order status is updated, M2E Pro catches the related changes and submits them to the Channel.
In the previous Module versions, if an automatic Order status synchronization fails for some reasons, M2E Pro makes the next sync attempt only after another Order change is detected. Otherwise, manual action is needed.
In this version, Module behavior has been reworked. The automatic Order synchronization can be performed up to 3 times in case fails now. This greatly improves the overall sync performance in terms of Order status update.
Fulfillment Center ID is imported to M2E Pro
Starting from the current version, the Fulfillment Center ID is imported to M2E Pro. Navigate to Amazon > Sales > FBA Order details to check the related data.
Fulfillment Center ID data is available only for Orders which will be imported after the Module upgrade. The previously imported FBA Orders cannot be supplemented with this data.
Editable Recipient Name information in Order Shipping Address
With this Module version, you get an ability to edit the Recipient Name in Order Shipping Address. Now you can provide the targeted delivery if the Buyer wishes to send the Item to another person.
Navigate to Amazon > Sales > Amazon Order details, click Edit under the Buyer Information and fill in the Recipient Name field:
Sales Tax is shown in Amazon Order details now
From this Module version, the tax applied to the purchased product can be reviewed on the Order details page:
Royal Mail delivery is now available under Amazon Shipping Service tool
M2E Pro has updated the list of carriers and package options under the Amazon's Shipping Service tool in accordance with the latest Amazon changes. Now you can select the package options offered by the Royal Mail delivery company when configuring a new shipment for your sales.
Description Policy
New ASIN/ISBN Creation feature is now available on Amazon Mexico
M2E Pro supports the New ASIN/ISBN Creation feature in nine Amazon marketplaces, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and Australia. Sellers can now add a new Products to Amazon catalog in any of these marketplaces. Please find more details here.
Providing of MSRP / RRP for Item description
In sales, it is highly important to attract the buyer's attention and persuade to make a purchase from you exactly. For example, you can play on the product price comparing using the manufacturer’s suggested retail price or the recommended retail price next to your's retail price to emphasize how fair it is. In this way, the customers get an assurance they are dealing with an honest seller.
With this Module version, you get an ability to submit the MSRP/RRP to the Channel with the Product Description. To specify the value, navigate to Amazon > Configuration > Policies > Description Policy > Definition > Price section:
MSRP/RRP is not a price the buyers will pay for your Item. Your retail price should be set within Selling Policy.
Shipping Policy
Shipping Override Policy is no longer available
Since Amazon has introduced the new shipping program, the Shipping Overrides are no longer necessary nor supported. That is why starting from the current Module version, M2E Pro Shipping Override Policy is no longer available. Instead, you can apply Amazon Shipping Templates to your products via M2E Pro using the Shipping Policy.
Ability to use Shipping Templates features
M2E Pro introduces support for Amazon Shipping Templates.
Prior to creating M2E Pro Shipping Policy, set up the Shipping Templates in your Seller Central.
To apply Amazon Shipping Templates via M2E Pro, create the Shipping Policy under the Amazon > Configuration > Policies.
After you specify the meaningful Title of your Policy template, enter Amazon Shipping Template name either manually or via Magento Attribute. Use Listing Setting View Mode to assign Shipping Policy to your M2E Pro Items.
To submit the shipping settings updates to Amazon, you can apply a manual Revise action in M2E Pro Listing.
Many improvements to Amazon Shipping Service feature have been made
In the current version, important improvements to Amazon Shipping Service feature have been provided.
Synchronization Policy
Changes of Attributes that were assigned to Restock Date and Production Time values are tracked
Under the newly introduced approach to data synchronization, M2E Pro tracks the changes made to Magento Attributes which are used for Restock Date and Production Time options. Once the appropriate Magento Attribute values are modified, the related Products will be updated on the Channel accordingly.
Restock Date and Production Time updates are managed by the Quantity option in Revise Rules settings.
Automatic revise of Item Details and Image data has been removed
In the previous versions, the Module supported an automatic revise of Item Details and Images, i.e. Condition Note, Gift Message, Gift Wrap, Item Description, Shipping, and Product Tax Code information, Product Images and Listing Photos.
Starting from this version, these parameters are no longer updated automatically. The related options were removed from the Revise Rules settings. There are two main reasons for that:
- Amazon limits the number of requests made to it per a given amount of time. The more changes you make, the more requests have to be sent to Amazon. Frequent update of Item Details or Images may prevent the Module from submitting more crucial Item updates like Price or QTY.
- Submitting your Item Description and Images may not have any impact on Amazon ASIN because its information is supplied by many other sellers. A frequent synchronization of Description and Image data is likely to be unreasonable.
However, you are still able to update this data. When some of these parameters are changed, M2E Pro will notify you as the following screenshot shows:
Using the Advanced Filter, select all Items that have Details/Images updates and Submit the Revise action. All changes made to the Item Details or Images will be applied on the Channel.
Products with Inactive (Blocked) status are updated more than once a day
Products may have the Inactive (Blocked) status if they are closed or blocked on Amazon due to a pricing error, missing product information, etc. To resolve the issue, the appropriate changes must be made directly in Amazon Seller Central. After the related data is edited, Amazon will unblock the Item. The updated Item status will be imported to M2E Pro.
Starting from the current version, the updating of Item status is executed several times a day. This helps to keep the Product information up-to-date.
Increased performance of Update Order Fulfillment Status action
Amazon limits the number of requests made to it per a given amount of time to prevent the too much load on their servers. Previously, it may take a considerable time to submit a large number of order updates due to Amazon throttling.
In this version, substantial improvements have been made to Synchronization performance. M2E Pro groups the Order status updates together and sends them on a per-feed basis at regular time intervals. This allows significantly increasing the number of tracking data submitted to the Channel per one request and in general.
Increased performance of Cancel/Refund Order actions
Before the requests for Order cancelation and refund were submitted to the Channel immediately and per each M2E Pro Amazon account separately. This encountered Module with Amazon limitations related to the number of requests made per a given amount of time.
M2E Pro has enhanced the approach to the data submitting in the current version. Cancel/Refund Order actions are grouped per your Merchant and sent to the Channel at regular time intervals. This greatly optimizes the processing of Cancel/Refund Order actions.
Auto moving of mapped 3rd Party Items is no longer available
In old Module versions, after the initial importing, the mapped 3rd Party Items could be automatically moved to M2E Pro Listing. In many cases, this caused sellers to face certain problems, i.e. their Channel Items were updated with inappropriate Magento data based on that Listing settings.
Being sure that the moving of 3rd Party Items should be a controlled process, M2E Pro stops supporting the automatic moving starting from the current version. Now, you can move the 3rd party Items only manually from the 3rd Party Listings grid.
Ability to apply 'Immediate Synchronization' for moved 3rd Party Listings is no longer available
In the previous Module version, you were able to synchronize the 3rd Party Listings just after they were automatically mapped to Magento Products and moved to M2E Pro Listings.
Taking into account the recent changes made by M2E Pro developers to the synchronization mechanism, the Immediate Synchronization option has become redundant. Starting from the current version, the 3rd Party Listings moved to M2E Pro Listing are synchronized immediately based on Revise Rules set in Synchronization Policy.
Repricing Tool
Ability to synchronize the Repricing Product data manually
The Repricing functionality becomes more popular among M2E Pro users. Lately, we have detected a significant increase in the overall inventory volume that is managed via the Repricing Tool.
In order to provide reliable service and efficient Price management, any changes you made via Repricing Tool take effect immediately. Herewith, the full data sync between Repricing Service and M2E Pro is run once a day. This means that if you make some updates directly on Repricing Service side, you will get them automatically synchronized during the day or you may need to sync the data manually.
To improve customers' experience, M2E Pro has supplemented the Repricing sync mechanism with an ability to run it manually at a given time. To do this, click Refresh under the Amazon > Configuration > Accounts > Account Configuration > Repricing Tool:
Ability to review Repricing Synchronization logs
The correct Repricing Synchronization is highly important for your Product pricing and competitive edge preserving. M2E Pro provides you with the reliable mechanism of the repriced product updating.
However, if the Synchronization process fails, you are able to timely find out the reasons for that. Navigate to Amazon > Logs > Synchronization, filter the record by Repricing Synchronization type and check what has caused the issue to resolve it immediately.
The Price of Inactive Repricing Products is updated via M2E Pro now
To prevent any inaccuracies, the Item Price should be updated via a single data source. That is why after Product is added to Repricing Service, M2E Pro stops affecting its Price. If Item is disabled for the repricing, M2E Pro starts updating its Price again.
However, there is one more Product state that has to be considered under this logic. When the Item becomes Inactive within Repricing Service for some reasons, it cannot be repriced temporarily. To maintain your control under the Item Price, starting from this release, M2E Pro will update the Price of Products which have Inactive (ASIN/Condition duplicate) or Inactive (broken product) status within Repricing Service.
Major improvements in Repricing Synchronization performance
In this Module version, M2E Pro developers have significantly enhanced the mechanism of Repricing Synchronization. The data exchange between M2E Pro and Repricing Service is protected by a reliable connection and optimized servers load regardless of the number of Products that need to be processed. This allows synchronizing the minimal, maximal, and regular prices much faster now.
Configurations
Australia Region has been moved to the separate block under the Marketplaces tab
Recently, M2E Pro has introduced support for Amazon Australia marketplace. The related changes have been made to the Module interface. The Australia Region has been moved to the separate block under the Amazon > Configuration > Marketplaces.
Rakuten Integration
Integration with Rakuten.com has been removed
We have to announce that starting from the current Module version, the Rakuten.com is no longer supported. M2E Pro Team has faced the blocked APIs on the part of Rakuten.com. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to revive the connection and prevents technical support even of basic integration functionality.
On the other hand, this situation allows Module to unload its servers and focus on the integration with the well-known e-retail giants. Takes all advantages of M2E Pro solution for eBay, and Walmart marketplaces.
Major improvements to dynamic Magento-to-Channel Synchronization
M2E Pro Team introduces a completely new approach to the automatic synchronization process:
- Get high precision with the updated automatic Revise Rules.
- Take the advantages of optimized List and Relist actions.
- Be well-informed using the action scheduling mechanism.
- Stay efficient owing to the increased sync performance.
The extension uses two mechanisms to detect the changes made to your Magento Products: tracking of Magento Attributes and monitoring of Policy Templates. This complex approach allows taking into account all Product modifications without any loss.
Previously, you had two blocks to configure in Revise Rules - Full Revise and Partial Revise. Each of these blocks triggered the auto sync only if the direct change occurred in Policy Template or Magento Attribute accordingly.
With this Module version, you get a new concept of data revising: each Revise Condition is strictly connected to the certain Product Property and triggers the changes made to this Property in both Policy Template settings and Magento Attribute set for this Property in Policy Template. For you, this means less time spent on configuring while more flexibility and accuracy in the processing of updates.
Below you can see the updated list of Revise Conditions for both eBay and Amazon integrations:
For example, if you enable the 'Title' option in your Revise Rules and the changes are made to the related Description Policy settings or Magento Attribute set for this Property in Description Policy, Module will update the Item Title on the Channel. If the Title option is disabled, it will never be affected by M2E Pro. This can be helpful if you are using the 3d party extension for the Item Title generating, for example.
The list of parameters which can be tracked by the Module has been extended. For example, the Item Condition, Condition Note, Taxation, Best Offer, and Charity information on eBay will be dynamically updated once you enable 'Other' option in your Revise Rules. This gives you even more control over your Item data.
For your convenience, the Move action applied to the mapped 3d Party Item or any existing M2E Pro Item triggers the Item revise on the Channel. Once the Item is moved to the particular M2E Pro Listing, it will be updated in accordance with the related Magento Product information based on the Synchronization Rules you have set.
What if you change the Revise Rule settings?
Starting from this version, the Module follows a new intelligent logic of data revising. For example, once you enable Title option, the Module will check the correspondence between Title value in Policy Template settings or Magento Attribute set for this Property in Policy Template and on the Channel first. If they are similar, the Revise of Item Title will be skipped as redundant action. Otherwise, the Revise of Title will be scheduled. Such an approach to the data revising helps to optimize the load on servers, therefore, increase overall processing speed.
Your experience during the automatic List/Relist actions has been also improved.
The Item List is always under the Module control. If the List action per specific Item fails due to the lack or incorrectness of required data, M2E Pro will automatically retry the Item List once any changes are made to its Properties.
As for Relist action, this procedure has become faster. The data submitted during this action has been limited to the most important Item Properties - Quantity and Price values. This greatly speeds up the action processing and allows reviving your Channel Listings rapidly.
To submit the actual Price value along with the QTY during the Item Relist, you have to enable the Price option in your Revise Rules.
Want to know all about the planned updates for your Items? With this Module version, you will. The Action Scheduling mechanism has been implemented by M2E Pro developers to give you more insights into the Magento-to-Channel data sync.
Before to proceed, it is important to note that the processing of the sync actions has some peculiarities.
On the one hand, the List, Revise, Stop, and Relist actions vary in importance and priority compared with one another. For example, to hide the out-of-stock Item from the customers is obviously more crucial than update the Item Subtitle at a given time.
On the other hand, the Channel APIs require optimizing the number of requests made to them simultaneously. For example, Amazon limits the number of requests made to it per a given amount of time to prevent the too much load on their servers.
All these promoted the development of the complex system for assessing and ranking sync actions and their subsequent planning and processing. Before the action is scheduled, M2E Pro analyzes the data and determines the necessity of the requested action. For example, in case of Revise, the Module checks whether the real change has been made to the Item Property. If the requested action is reasonable, it is scheduled for future processing.
After the action is scheduled, users will see the appropriate label next to the Item:
It can take some time to display the Action is Scheduled label within the Listing grid after you save the changes to a product. During the waiting time, Module processes the queue of changes.
When the action is already in progress, it cannot be interrupted. On the other hand, the scheduled action can be replaced with another one if necessary.
The scheduled updates are submitted to the Channel based on the action priority. For example, the automatic Stop action has a higher priority than the automatic Revise of Item Title. Herewith, the manual action always has primacy over the automatic one. There is only one exception: the automated Stop action has a higher priority than manual Revise action. Because it is senseless to update the Item which must be stopped on the Channel.
Be attentive, the manual action has a higher priority over the automatic one in case of their conflict. In the limited number of cases, this may lead to the loss of product data changes. For example, if automatic Revise action is replaced by manual Stop action, the Revise data will be lost.
The scheduling mechanism makes it possible to continuously control your Item updating via the visual labels within Listing grids and get the crucial changes processed first. The most important is that this gives a significant and sustainable increase in sync performance: the Module submits considerably more Item changes to eBay and Amazon at a given time. The details about enhancements to the sync performance for each Integration can be found below.
Optimization of Magento-to-eBay sync performance
To clearly demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of the improvements made by M2E Pro developers to Magento-to-eBay synchronization, please consider the following information.
In previous Module versions, all Item updates were submitted to the Channel in sequence. On average, it took 3 seconds per each update to be processed. Therefore, to update 100 Items, it took 300 seconds.
But what happens if you have a big-sized inventory? We get numerous Items which are required to be constantly updated.
Or what if you dynamically syncing your stock quantity and price with the suppliers’ warehouses? We get a continuous list of QTY/Price changes that need to be applied.
What about if you sell your Items on 3, 5 or more eBay sites simultaneously? This means all Item updates are multiplied accordingly.
As a result, we get hundreds of thousands of Item updates which are supposed to be processed at a given time. There is even no need to go into exact calculations. It is clear that to process all these changes in sequence and within an acceptable time frame is physically impossible.
To enhance the selling experience of those merchants who have big-sized inventories, M2E Pro has introduced an intelligent sync logic. The new sync mechanism includes an ability to control all Item modifications, verify the real Item changes, schedule the required actions, and submit the Item updates based on their priority. The most important thing is that all Item updates are processed in parallel. This results in 10 to 100 times increased sync speed.
Let’s compare the old sync model with the new one in the next example.
We have 10 000 Item updates to process on several marketplaces at the given moment of time. Previously it might take approximately 30 000 seconds or 8 hours. Now a similar number of Item changes can be submitted to eBay during only the 15-30 minutes. This is a substantial breakthrough in data synchronization performance. M2E Pro Team is proud to provide its customers with the qualitative service and do its best to suit the highest demands.
Optimization of Magento-to-Amazon sync performance
Amazon has strict limitations related to the number of requests that can be made to their API at the given amount of time from a single Merchant.
For example, Amazon Europe includes 5 marketplaces per single Merchant. This means that you can submit the bulk Item changes only 4 times per hour: one feed for QTY changes, another one for the Price updates and one more for some other data. Therefore, the key Item Properties such as QTY or Price can be changed only once in an hour. This is critically small limit especially in case of big-sized inventories.
Previously, the Module processed any update just after it occurred. In some cases this led to inefficient use of Amazon feeds and could prevent the Module from submitting some crucial updates made to your Items.
Starting from the current version, the data sync is provided in a new intelligent way. All the scheduled actions are sent to the Channel on a per-feed basis regularly. Although the slight delay in Item updating still remains, it is within an acceptable time frame.
Gain all the advantages of the new Magento-to-Amazon synchronization mechanism.
Technical Changelog
- Common: [Added] Integration with Walmart Marketplace
- Common: [Added] Automatic Price Currency Conversion for Magento Attributes with Price Input Type
- Common: [Added] Support of Magento Downloadable Product type
- Common: [Added] New Cron Task which will try to create a Magento Order again after some time if initial creation was failed
- Common: [Added] Added compatibility of "Auto Add/Remove Rules" for website changes in Magento "Update attributes" mass action
- Common: [Added] Notification about coming maintenance on M2E servers
- Common: [Improved] Grids Performance were increased if there are more than 10000+ Products
- Common: [Improved] Significant changes of Synchronization Performance / Structure (global changes)
- Common: [Improved] Support of M2E Pro paid version (License Page, Accounts Pages changes)
- Common: [Improved] Quantity Reservation is reverted automatically if order has been canceled on channel
- Common: [Improved] Much more stability of Products background Synchronization
- Common: [Improved] Channel Orders will be archived if they were created more than 180 days ago (in order to speed up the Orders grid)
- Common: [Improved] Clearing all remembered choices made by user additionally to help blocks state
- Common: [Improved] Increasing stability of locking mechanism for prevention parallel cron running
- Common: [Improved] Correct handle of issues related to failed connection to external services
- Common: [Improved] Reserve the Order quantity if Magento Order creation was failed
- Common: [Improved] Changes of Magento Products, Policies, etc don't get lost even if Listing Product is Inactive
- Common: [Improved] Combine Partial Revise and Full Revise settings in Synchronization Policy into rules that manage the Magento Products and Policies changes
- Common: [Improved] Part of Product data is not updated during Revise action if appropriate Revise setting in Synchronization Policy is disabled
- Common: [Improved] Prioritise Product actions by type and updated data (for Revise action)
- Common: [Improved] Products moved from 3rd Party Listings or from another M2ePro Listing will be synchronized with Channel based on Synchronization Rules
- Common: [Improved] Significant improvements in the performance of 3rd Party Listings grids
- Common: [Improved] Stop Rules in Synchronization Policy can be enabled and disabled in general (like List and Relist Rules)
- Common: [Improved] Trying to avoid channel data loss during synchronization in cases when fatal error occurs during processing received data
- Common: [Improved] Implement multi stores QTY management
- Common: [Improved] Public Services models updated (SQL Change Processor and Magmi Plugin)
- Common: [Improved] General performance was increased
- Common: [Improved] Long SKU can be cut automatically before the List Action
- Common: [Improved] Local storage will be used (instead of cookies) for saving information about Help Blocks state
- Common: [Improved] Menu structure was improved (based on enabled Channels)
- Common: [Improved] Ability to filter Mapped/Unmapped Magento products in 3rd party grids
- Common: [Improved] Products are moved in packs to avoid falling within the max size of the POST request
- Common: [Improved] Compatibility with PHP 7.2
- Common: [Improved] Products are moved in packs to avoid falling within the max size of the POST request
- Common: [Fixed] Incorrect work of QTY reservation feature in some cases
- Common: [Fixed] New behavior on the "Assign eBay Category" / "Select Amazon Description Policy" / "Assign Walmart Category Policy" step
- Common: [Removed] Support Magento CE versions lower than 1.5.1.0 and Magento EE versions lower than 1.10.1.0
- eBay: [Added] Ability to use In-Store Pickup Shipping feature
- eBay: [Added] Tool for prevention and resolving Item Duplicates issues
- eBay: [Added] Ability to use M2E Pro images URLs in Item Description
- eBay: [Added] Ability to use Parts Compatibility Feature based on ePIDs for the United Kingdom and Germany
- eBay: [Added] Ability to use Guarantee Delivery feature
- eBay: [Added] Ability to use Lot Size feature
- eBay: [Added] Ability to use eBay Item Id for mapping 3rd Party Listings
- eBay: [Added] Ability to view deleted variations on eBay Variations Popup
- eBay: [Added] Ability to specify Category during moving products from 3rd Party Listings
- eBay: [Improved] Ability to specify ePID (Product Reference ID) for each variation in Manager Variations popup
- eBay: [Improved] ePID (Product Reference ID) setting from Description Policy sending for Configurable and Grouped Variation Products
- eBay: [Improved] Save online VariationDetails after a successful action to the channel
- eBay: [Improved] Ability to edit Product Details for Old Inactive Variation
- eBay: [Improved] Another URL is generated to link the Item on channel
- eBay: [Improved] List/Relist/Revise/Stop actions cannot affect any another Synchronization
- eBay: [Improved] If category of listed Item starts to require UPC/EAN/ISBN identifier, M2E will send full Details to prevent an error
- eBay: [Improved] Ability to select in Compatible Vehicles Grid more than 1000 kTypes\ePIDs per once
- eBay: [Improved] The use of secure content (http / https) can be enabled via M2E Pro interface
- eBay: [Improved] Updating Payment and Shipping status for Orders will be performed not in Shipment and Invoice observers (like Amazon Integration)
- eBay: [Improved] Preventing "Duplicate variation custom label" error during renaming Variation Options in Magento
- eBay: [Improved] Try to get changes from eBay step by step, increasing the sinceDate, in order to prevent losing changes
- eBay: [Improved] Dispatch Time in Shipping Policy can be selected from Magento Attribute
- eBay: [Improved] New Description, Shipping, Payment, and Return Revise settings added in Synchronization Policy
- eBay: [Improved] Ignore spaces for Variation Attributes values
- eBay: [Improved] Write an additional log message when Order Item count has been modified on the channel (but Magento order is already created)
- eBay: [Improved] Revise an Item automatically if a Static Block, used in the custom description, was changed
- eBay: [Improved] Specifying Category is required in Auto Add/Remove Rules Listing settings
- eBay: [Improved] Specifying Category is required during adding Product to Listing in all cases
- eBay: [Improved] Compatibility with new Return Polices (International Returns)
- eBay: [Improved] 3rd party product will be removed only if it is successfully added during move action
- eBay: [Fixed] Many fixes for Magento-to-eBay integration
- eBay: [Removed] 3rd Party Listings synchronization (relist/revise/stop actions)
- eBay: [Removed] Ability to use USD currency for Canada Site (eBay does not support it)
- eBay: [Removed] Ability to use Schedule settings in the Synchronization Policy
- eBay: [Removed] Ability to open a gallery image in a new browser tab (custom description)
- Amazon: [Added] Integration with Amazon B2B for the US, UK, DE, FR, IT, ES marketplaces
- Amazon: [Added] Ability to create a Description template for MX Marketplace
- Amazon: [Added] Ability to use Shipping Templates features
- Amazon: [Added] New, faster way, to authorize Amazon account
- Amazon: [Added] Fulfillment Center ID is shown for FBA Orders
- Amazon: [Added] Added 'MSRP / RRP' field to Definition tab of Description template
- Amazon: [Added] Ability to edit the "Recipient Name" field for Shipping Address in Order page
- Amazon: [Added] Changes of Attributes that were assigned to Restock Date and Production Time values are tracked
- Amazon: [Added] Log errors during repricing actions
- Amazon: [Added] Ability to set Magento Order ID to Amazon Order as Seller Order ID
- Amazon: [Added] Ability to filter Listing Products with changed Details and Images data using Advanced Filter
- Amazon: [Added] Tax Percent column to Order Items grid
- Amazon: [Improved] Many improvements of List/Relist/Revise/Stop actions
- Amazon: [Improved] Major improvements if Magento Products are changed very often
- Amazon: [Improved] Products with Inactive (Blocked) status are updated often than once a day
- Amazon: [Improved] Many improvements of Amazon's Shipping Services feature (Buy Shipping API)
- Amazon: [Improved] Added ability to repeat updating Order Status on Channel up to 3 times on fails
- Amazon: [Improved] Update Order Fulfillment Status action performance improvements
- Amazon: [Improved] New way of checking Sku duplicates during List Action
- Amazon: [Improved] Handle Repricing Inactive states of repriced Products
- Amazon: [Improved] Repricing Products can be synchronized manually in Account Settings
- Amazon: [Improved] Significant improvements in the performance of Repricing synchronization
- Amazon: [Improved] Tracking of changes related to Repricing Data was rewrote
- Amazon: [Improved] Improvements of Cancel / Refund Orders Actions performance
- Amazon: [Improved] The data changes are not sent during Repricing User Changes synchronization when all Price Setting selected as "Manually"
- Amazon: [Improved] Australia Marketplace moved to the separate block under the Marketplaces tab
- Amazon: [Improved] General id matcher improvements
- Amazon: [Improved] The package list for Amazon Shipping Services has been actualized (Royal Mail added)
- Amazon: [Improved] Increased stability of variation processors
- Amazon: [Fixed] Many fixes for Magento-to-Amazon integration
- Amazon: [Removed] Ability to use Shipping Override Policy
- Amazon: [Removed] 'Immediate Synchronization' option from Account 3rd Party Moving settings (moved products will be synchronized by default)
- Amazon: [Removed] Auto moving from 3rd Party Listings functionality
- Amazon: [Removed] Ability to Automatic Revise of Details and Images data
- Rakuten.com: [Removed] Integration with Rakuten.com marketplace (channel disabled major parts of API)