Why the fuss over stock values?
Put simply: you need to avoid overselling. We’re all aware of the rigid KPIs Takealot Marketplace requires sellers to maintain. You need to avoid this scenario:
Let’s say you have 5 T-Shirts in stock, so you go and set your values:
Selling Channel | Stock Value |
Online Store (e.g. WooCommerce, Shopify, Ecwid) | 5 |
Physical Store | 5 |
Takealot Marketplace Lead Time | 5 |
You might have a customer in store, who decides to buy all 5 shirts. At the same time, there is a customer online buying 2 items on Takealot. You will have to cancel the Takealot order leading to loss of sales and a negatively impacted seller account.
Let's take a look at the options available to mitigate overselling stock when selling through multiple channels: Your Physical Store, Your Online Store and Marketplaces like Takealot.
Common approaches
1. Managing multiple sets of stock
This is the most common approach we see. You split the physical stock value between your platforms.
Physical Stock: 5 T-Shirts
Selling Channel | Stock Value |
Online Store (e.g. WooCommerce, Shopify, Ecwid) | 2 |
Physical Store | 2 |
Takealot Marketplace Lead Time | 1 |
Pros
- You won’t over sell stock
- You only need to update the platform where the item is sold with a new stock value
Cons
- Might lead to loss of sales when a Takealot buyer wants to purchase 5 items.
2. Building a custom integration
Takealot Marketplace provides an API (application programming interface) through which sellers can update their stock and pricing values for products and see their sales.
API: An
application programming interface is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other.If you are technically inclined, you could develop your own integration that will update Takealot’s stock values from your online store (WooCommerce, Shopify, Ecwid etc.) each time you make a sale on your own store. Alternatively you could employ the services of a software developer to do this for you.
Pros
- No need to manually update Takealot’s lead time stock value
- Can list all of your available stock on both your online store and Takealot Marketplace
Cons
- Difficult & time consuming to implement
- Expensive upfront cost if you opt to have a developer build the integration
- Requires you to stay up to date with Takealot API updates, might require re-integration when APIs change
- Server overhead on your website to both sell to your online customers and keep Takealot updated might bog it down or increase costs
- Integrating more than 2 platforms (e.g. Retail Store, Online Store and Takealot Marketplace) exponentially scales complexity
3. Using a cloud integration service
Wherehouse is a cloud-based integration service that syncs data between a multitude of eCommerce platforms. Amongst others these include WooCommerce and Takealot Marketplace. Wherehouse also supports accounting and inventory management platforms such as Xero, Zoho and Unleashed.
Data that can be synced with Takealot
Products | Orders (Both Lead Time & In Stock) |
Selling Price | Takealot Order ID |
RRP (Recommended Retail Price) | Order Date |
Lead Time Stock Value | SKUs (Line Items) sold |
ㅤ | Sale Status |
ㅤ | Quantity |
ㅤ | Sell Price |
ㅤ | Customer name & surname |
ㅤ | Takealot DC |
Ideally you would introduce a third purpose-built system to manage your inventory separately from your sales channels. We recommend: Xero, Zoho or Unleashed. Wherehouse also supports omni-channel integrating with these.
Pros
- Stock is automatically synced between all of your sales channels
- Supports other marketplaces too (Loot, Leroy Merlin, BidOrBuy etc.)
- Supports in-store systems
- Updated to new API standards
- No upfront onboarding cost
Cons
- Monthly subscription fee (starting at R249/pm)
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