Back in 2020 – doesn’t that seem a lifetime ago? – we introduced OnBuy as a potentially key element of your online multichannel ecommerce strategy, before talking in Part 1 about how you can manage this marketplace centrally along with your other online channels. Now it’s time to add some news of our own about OnBuy.
Phase 1 of integrating OnBuy into Volo Origin centralised the processes around pricing updates, orders and stock levels. Many of our customers are now actively selling on OnBuy and enjoying success. Some of our customers registered their interest but were holding back for Phase 2. By the way, to register your interest with OnBuy, you can use this special Volo referral link here.
We recently released Phase 2, which is around product handling, which is what those customers were waiting for. It was the bigger of the 2 phases for us to deliver, but what it means is that you can create a product and list to OnBuy, or else make an offer against an existing product in the OnBuy catalogue, directly from Volo Origin. The promise of multichannel ecommerce systems is that they allow you streamline your operations across multiple marketplaces and web stores through a centralising platform, so we’re pleased to be able to round out this functionality for the OnBuy marketplace.
You can bring your data into Volo Origin via the Origin UI, via Excel import or via the API. Then you simply send your products to OnBuy and our Origin push process performs an automated check of the OnBuy Product Code to see if the product already exists in the catalogue. If it does exist, it will automatically make an offer against that product with your listing information. If it doesn’t exist, Origin will trigger a new product creation request, which, when approved by OnBuy is ready for your own approval and publishing.
Here’s a shortened version of Part 1’s post for how you get selling on OnBuy as part of a multichannel platform that centalises your effort across your various marketplaces. We’ve used Volo Origin (for selling) and Vision (for reporting) as an example.
Firstly, register to sell with OnBuy. Here’s a link to do that. There’s a short form to fill in and then OnBuy will set you up for listing and selling your products. As we’ve touched on, OnBuy operates a catalogue system like Amazon so multiple sellers can add listings to existing products via barcode matching.
You can create your listing using your unique GS1 barcodes manually, or by CSV file, or through OnBuy’s API, or a full integration like Volo Origin. If you own a UK or EU trademark for your brands, the OnBuy brand ownership feature restricts other sellers from listing on these products.
Then, from your OnBuy account, go into imports and integrations and pull your OnBuy account into your multichannel management system with your OnBuy Seller ID and the relevant authentication keys from the OnBuy API area. You test your connection and you’re good to go.
From there you’ll be able to pull in your data from OnBuy. If you use a multichannel system like Volo Origin with full product handling, you’ll be able to create listings and manage the order and post-order processes centrally along with your other marketplaces. This has many advantages, such as automatically updating your stock levels for each product across all your channels. Otherwise, you’ll need to create the listings directly in OnBuy.
Once you have OnBuy integrated into your multichannel operations you’ll want to analyse your performance and report on OnBuy performance alongside your other channels. With systems like Volo Vision, which sits on top of Volo Origin, you’ll see your OnBuy data straight away and have access to the same dashboard, report and filtering capabilities as your other channels.
The value of multichannel systems is that they can make it more efficient for you to execute your long term ecommerce strategy across multiple marketplaces and web stores. When this efficiency extends to the important and time-consuming area of product handling, you can really see the benefits end to end.
To register with OnBuy, click here, which tells OnBuy you came from us. To talk about streamlining the management of OnBuy and your other online channels, do get in touch.
