Planning to sell on Takealot? In this blog, we’re unveiling the ultimate guide to perfecting your product listings on Takealot Marketplace. Buckle up as we embark on the exciting journey of mastering this process 🚀
Understanding the Takealot Selling Process
Successfully selling on Takealot Marketplace requires a clear understanding of the steps involved. Let's explore these pivotal stages:
- Adding Products: To begin, a product with its attributes need to be created and added to the Takealot Catalogue.
- Approval Process: Once the product listing is ready, it goes through a review and approval process by Takealot.
- Adding Offers: Once approved, you and any other sellers offering the same product can add your offers. This encompasses your available stock and pricing.
Any seller can add an offer to sell the same product on Takealot marketplace
It's essential to understand that once you create a product listing, the product data becomes part of Takealot's Catalogue and can be utilised by other sellers. There is an exception to this rule - if you hold a patent or have a special agreement with Takealot, you have exclusive rights to add an offer for that particular product.
While you have the flexibility to edit your offers at any time, it's crucial to note that the product information itself cannot be edited on the fly.
Therefore, it's of utmost importance to be meticulous when initially creating product listings. Making changes after the fact involves a time-consuming process, requiring the submission of a change request form.
Navigating the Takealot Seller dashboard
The Takealot Seller Dashboard is a web-based interface provided by Takealot to their sellers. It serves as a central hub where sellers can manage various aspects of their online store and business operations on the Takealot platform.
Let’s run through some of the features:
On the Home page you can view Leadtime Order Statuses and any Recent Communication
You can use the left sidebar to navigate
Add or search products to list by hitting the “New Offers” tab
View and manage your current product offers by hitting the “My Existing Offers” tab and then selecting “Manage My Offers”
Adding products
Here is a step-by-step guide on creating new product listings.
There are 3 ways to manually create new listings:
Follow the steps below:
1️⃣ In the side panel Click the “New Offers” tab and select “Search Takealot’s Catalogue”
2️⃣ Use the filters to search for the relevant product and hit “Add My Offer” when you find it
3️⃣ Next you’ll have to select variant(s) of the product you want to add an offer
Variants are different versions of a product (like sizes or colours) grouped under one listing
4️⃣ Click on “Select Variant” to add it to your offer
5️⃣ You can click on “Show more details” and read through the info to make sure you’re adding the right product/variant
6️⃣ Hit “Add Offer” if all relevant variants have been added
7️⃣ If the following information is a match on the product you’re adding you can confidently hit the “Confirm” button
- Barcode
- Product Warranty
- What’s in the box
- Product specifications
You can add multiple products per submission
Follow the steps below:
1️⃣ In the side panel:
- Click the “New Offers” tab
- Select “Add to Takealot’s Catalogue”
- Click on “Add a Product”
2️⃣ Select the relevant Product Category
If you don’t know which category to choose you can search the “Global Category Tree Look-up” by clicking on the link
Allocate the Category to the relevant Department and then select the relevant sub-category
3️⃣ Add product Variants
4️⃣ Add product Attributes & hit “Next”
Attributes are unique product features (like size or colour) that help customers to find your product
You can use the drop downs to select additional attributes (this is recommended)
Relevant and detailed attributes make it easier for customers to find your product
5️⃣ Add Product Details & hit “Next”
- Product Title & optional Subtitle
- Key Selling Features
- What’s in the box
- Optional video links
Make sure all the information you enter is detailed & accurate to ensure that your products get approved. To make changes after approval of a product is a timely process and involves submission of a change request form.
6️⃣ Add Product Images & hit “Next”
You'll need to provide high-quality photos that meet their requirements
You can upload images or add image links
7️⃣ Add Product Identifiers & hit “Next”
This includes the following:
- Barcode (the registered product barcode)
- Your own SKU
8️⃣ Click “Continue to Preview”
9️⃣ Review everything and if you’re happy select “Submit for Review”
You can use the Save and Close option if you’d like to keep editing later (Only an option before submitting for review)
You can add multiple products per submission by clicking on “+ Add another product” and repeating the process above
Follow the steps below:
Takealot uses a specially formatted file to import multiple products (there are different loadsheet documents for each Category)
1️⃣ In the side panel:
- Click the “New Offers” tab
- Select “Add to Takealot’s Catalogue”
- Click on “Add Products in Bulk”
2️⃣ Download a loadsheet for the appropriate category
You can only download and submit a loadsheet for ONE CATEGORY at a time, so you’ll need to download a template for each category you’re uploading products for
3️⃣ Fill out the loadsheet
Accurate & detailed information is essential to get your loadsheet approved for a bulk import
4️⃣ Upload the filled out loadsheet
Adding Offers
Once you have successfully created new product listings these will be added as offers to your Seller Portal and your next step is to add and manage your offer information.
You can do this in the Manage my Offers page in the Seller Portal.
1️⃣ In the side panel:
- Click the “My Existing Offers” tab
- Select “Manage My Offers”
2️⃣ Add your seller SKU, Pricing and Leadtime Stock Details (stock on hand & leadtime in days)
When adding an offer from Takealot’s Catalogue, you and other sellers will be selling the same product, Takealot will assign the order to the seller with the best (lowest) price
How does Wherehouse change the game?
Wherehouse communicates with Takealot through their seller API. Takealot Marketplace provides an API (application programming interface) through which sellers can update their stock and pricing values for products and see their sales. Our solution assists sellers in speeding up the process of filling out loadsheets. If you sync your stock source system to Wherehouse, then Wherehouse can create a loadsheet with attributes, details, image links, etc filled in Takealot’s required format.
There might be some category specific attributes you will need to add onto the loadsheet before submitting
Lets’s have an insider look at what you can expect when using the Wherehouse integration 👀
If your business only sells products falling under ONE Takealot category you’ll have ONE Takealot loadsheet
You can Click on “Download” to download a filled out loadsheet in Takealot’s required format. You can use the “Configure” button to edit the Category Mapping of the loadsheet.
Category mapping? For each of your categories, select the corresponding category for Takealot. These categories will automatically be swopped out when the loadsheet is generated.
If your business sells products across VARIOUS Takelalot categories you’ll have a Takealot loadsheet for each category
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You can click on the relevant loadsheet to Configure & Download
You’ll have to do the Category Mapping configuration for each loadsheet
To import you can simply upload the filled out Loadsheet generated from the Wherehouse dashboard 🎊
Remember to review the loadsheet thoroughly and add any extra category-specific attributes before submission to avoid having your loadsheet rejected
What is the cost of loadsheets?
Wherehouse Pricing Plans can be viewed on our website: https://www.wherehouse.co.za/#pricing
Depending on your subscription plan you’ll have a certain amount of loadsheets included monthly. The “Out of plan pricing” allows for additional loadsheets at the cost of R50 per loadsheet per month.
If you generate and download a Takealot Loadsheet in any given month it counts as one of the “Loadsheets” used for the month, BUT you can regenerate and download that loadsheet as many times as needed without adding to the “count” of loadsheets
Why use Wherehouse ?
Benefits of using Wherehouse include but is not limited to the following:
1️⃣ Category Mapping
When you use Wherehouse you have the perk of once-off category mapping instead of manually selecting sub-categories for each product when filling in a loadsheet
2️⃣ Ingesting product attribute data from various sources
3️⃣ Stock sync across sales channels
4️⃣ Bridges the gap between brick-and-mortar, online and third party marketplaces
5️⃣ Updated to new API standards
6️⃣ Supports other marketplaces too (Makro, Loot, Leroy Merlin, etc.)
7️⃣ No upfront onboarding cost
Experience a seamless and efficient integration experience 🙌
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