Bike dealers use online marketplaces to sell or present goods.
Ebay can be cited as a well-known example outside the bicycle industry, although it is not expected that Ebay will implement Veloconnect 😉 .
For retailers to cooperate with such marketplaces as http://bike-angebot.de , http://mein-fahrradhaendler.de , velocollect, etc., it is necessary for retailers to transmit their stock or availability of items and other data, which can change at short intervals, to the respective platforms.
Article identification (StockTransmitB2CLine)
As products from several suppliers/manufacturers are usually traded on the platforms, this use case differs from the B2B use case, especially in terms of article identification. Since the master data on the items and their properties are supplied by the platforms, the identification of the items is crucial and is usually done via the GTIN (Global Trade Item Number: StandardItemIdentification) - formerly EAN.
If a GTIN is not available, the unique identification is done via the MPN (manufacturer's part number: ManufacturersItemIdentification) in combination with a unique ID for brand or company.
Since it must be assumed that companies that do not use GTINs also do not have a GLN (Global Location Number), the public trademark directory of BIDEX is used
(https://www.bidex.bike/BikeBrands-Information).
In this case, the manufacturer item number (ManufacturersItemIdentification) must always be transferred in connection with the ID of the manufacturer from the BIDEX trademark directory in the child element (PartyIdentification):
<cac:Party>
<cac:PartyIdentification>
<cbc:ID schemeID="BIDEXBrand">4711</cbc:ID>
</cac:PartyIdentification>
</cac:Party>
Rule BIDEXBrand
Veloconnect-compliant implementations must set the IdentificationSchemeID attribute to the value BIDEXBrand if the identification is a public brand ID of BIDEX
(https://www.bidex.bike/XML/Webservices.asmx/GetBrands).
If a marketplace provides its own item identification via IDs, these can be used if they are known or available (MarketPlaceItemIdentification).
Rule for ItemIdentification (StockTransmitB2CLine)
Three item identifications are available for identification:
MarketPlaceItemIdentification
StandardItemIdentification
ManufacturersItemIdentification
At least one of the three must be present and the order of priority follows the numbering.
The retailer's item number (BuyersItemIdentification) should be transmitted in any case so that it can be included in the server's response to uniquely identify the item in the merchandise management system.
In the case of public marketplaces, prices as well as shipping costs and delivery times must be specified. These and other data should also be able to be transmitted per item and are therefore created as optional fields (StockTransmitB2CLine), see Data fields B2C (StockTransmitB2CLine) .
Transmission (StockTransmitB2CRequest)
For the transmission (StockTransmitB2CRequest) a time has to be specified and whether it is a complete or an incremental upload (FrequenceType).
For each item, in addition to the IDs, at least the availability must be transmitted, which can correspond to the following values:
1= available
2= limited availability
3= not available.
In addition, the stock can be transmitted. (StockTransmitB2CLine)
Processing Server
In a complete upload, the server saves the data and deletes all previously saved data - regardless of whether the new upload is to the same extent or with the same items. In an incremental upload, the server overwrites only the data of those articles for which a new value is sent. The data remains valid until the following complete upload or until it is overwritten by an incremental upload.
Response (StockTransmitB2CResponse).
In an initial, immediate response (StockTransmitB2CResponse), the server must acknowledge receipt or processing of the upload and transmit a transaction ID.
The following Transaction States apply here:
84 = Data is imported
85 = Data has been imported, from now on the status of the items can be returned.
184 = Transaction closed. Items can no longer be returned
ItemStatus
Processing log (GetItemStatusStockTransmitB2CRequest)
After a successful StockTransmit, the merchant's Wawi fetches a log of the processing with the corresponding transaction ID by request (GetItemStatusStockTransmitB2BRequest).
The following transaction states apply:
430 = Transaction still running
200 = Transaction completed
Response (GetItemStatusStockTransmitB2CResponse)
The response (GetItemStatusStockTransmitB2BResponse) is in the form of an item list (StockTransmitB2BResponseLine) with the following information per item:
Vendor Item Number (SellersItemIdentification) Mandatory.
Seller item number (BuyersItemIdentification) (if transmitted in the request)
The item was found at the supplier (true) or not found (false)
The list can be divided into packages that client and server negotiate with each other
(similar to the TextSearch transaction).