Creating and Managing Listings

Goflow offers a convenient and user-friendly listing tool for select channels. With Goflow, you can create and edit listings seamlessly in a familiar environment. Even if your listings were initially created using a different tool, you can import and manage them directly within Goflow.

In order to create and manage listings in Goflow, users must have the Listings role assigned to their profile. This ensures that only authorized users can perform listing-related tasks.

Products vs. Listings: Understanding The Difference

Before diving into the details of managing listings, it's important to understand the difference between products and listings in Goflow:

• Products in Goflow serve as your single master catalog. The product contains all the information about your items. You have only one catalog of products.
• Listings are catalogs specific to a particular store. Each store you partner with will have its own set of listings that are created based on the products in your master catalog. Listings include store-specific details such as pricing, shipping details, and additional attributes required by that particular channel.

Products and listings are connected through listing mapping. Each listing is mapped to a product.

When creating a new listing, you have two options for building out the listing:

• You can manually input all the required information, such as product details, attributes, pricing, and shipping, directly into the listing attributes.
• It would be more efficient, however, to enter all the information only once on the central product in your master catalog, and let the data cascade down from the product to all its mapped listings. This approach saves you time and effort when managing multiple listings for the same product across different stores. To use this approach, review Listing Attribute Mapping.

Creating a New Standalone Listing

To create a new listing, follow these steps:

1. Go to Listings › Products.
2. Use the filters and search box to find a product, and click to open it.
3. On the upper-right corner, click on New Listing.
4. Select the store, and click Next.
5. Fill in the listing attributes, and click Publish

Editing an Existing Standalone Listing

1. Go to Listings › Listings.
2. Click into a listing and click Manage Listing.
3. Update any listing attributes, and click Publish.

Filling In Listing Attributes

The SKU attribute is at the top of the page. This is the SKU for the store listing, and may be different than the Goflow product item number.

Click the tip (?) icon next to each field to see a short explanation for that attribute.

The rest of the attributes are organized into tabs. Go through each tab and fill in all applicable fields:

• Product - General information about the listing, such a title, description and bullet features.

• Category - After selecting a category, Goflow will display all attributes available for that category.

• Price - Various prices for the listing, such as List Price, Sale Price and MAP Price.

  The List Price is the regular retail price. Sale Price is the promotional, discounted price. When sale price is empty or 0, the listing will sell for the regular list price.

• Images - A list of product images. The first image is the main image, and the rest are additional images.

  Click Upload Image to browse your local files, or drag-and-drop files onto the Upload Image button. You can do this with multiple images at once, to easily upload them all.

  If your image is already hosted elsewhere, use the Upload From URL option to have Goflow copy the image from that URL.

  You may rearrange existing images by dragging them around on top of each other.

  Videos are not yet supported.

• Shipping - Various shipping-related attributes, such as shipping speed, shipping locations and return policies.

After filling in all your listing attributes, click Publish to send the listing to the store.

When publishing a listing with images, Goflow generates temporary publicly-accessible URLs to those images, so that the channel may download them without requiring authentication. In the event that the listing is stuck in review with the channel for more than 60 days, you may have to publish the listing again from Goflow.

Listing Approval Process

New Listings

When publishing a new listing, it is validated for data accuracy and channel compliance. Listings go through two approval stages:

1. Goflow validates the listing for missing required attributes and invalid data. This approval process is automatic, and happens immediately.

   • If there's anything missing or incorrect, it is not submitted to the channel. The listing is placed in Review with the required corrections clearly displayed, so that you can review the errors, correct them, and republish.

     To make it easier to work on the needed corrections, create a custom listings export which includes the Review Reasons field.

   • When the listing passes Goflow's validation, it is submitted to the channel. The listing is marked as Pending, awaiting the channel's approval.

2. The channel approval process starts once Goflow submits the listing to them.

   • If the channel determines that there's anything missing or incorrect, Goflow places the listing in Review, with the channel's required corrections clearly displayed.
   • When the listing is approved by the channel, it is automatically marked in Goflow as Active. Congratulation, your listing has been successfully published!

Listings may get stuck in Pending for a while. If you feel that it's stuck there longer than usual, contact the channel to see what's holding up their approval.

Existing Listings

When publishing updates to an existing listing, it is also validated for data accuracy and channel compliance, with the same two approval stages:

1. Goflow validates the listing for missing required attributes and invalid data. This approval process is automatic, and happens immediately.

   • If there's anything missing or incorrect, the update is not submitted to the channel. Mistakes are withheld from the channel, so that small data errors don't cause the listing to go offline and lose sales. The listing is placed in Review with the required corrections clearly displayed, so that you can review the errors, corrected them, and republish.
   • When the updates pass Goflow's validation, the listing stays Active and the listing updates are submitted to the channel. The listing page shows the Update Pending substatus, indicating that an update is awaiting the channel's approval.

2. The channel approval process starts once Goflow submits the listing updates to them.

   • If the channel determines that there's anything missing or incorrect, Goflow places the listing Review, with the channel's required corrections clearly displayed.
   • When the update is approved by the channel, Goflow removes the Update Pending substatus. Congratulation, your listing update has been successfully published!

Deactivating and Reactivating Listings

When you longer want to sell a given product on one of your stores, you may deactivate the listing by changing its status to Inactive. Goflow will notify the channel, and they'll deactivate the listing on their end.

The main listings page in Goflow hides inactive listings by default. To view inactive listings, open the Filters menu, and uncheck Hide Inactive.

When you want to sell that product again, you may reactivate the listing. Simply change its status back to Active. Goflow will notify the channel, and they'll reactivate the listing on their end.

Variations: Creating and Managing Variation Listings

Variations are a family of related listings that feature the same product with different variations in either size or color. They are usually displayed on the store together as a single listing, with options to choose between the different variations.

In Goflow, the term Family Type is used to differentiate between Standalone listings, which are not related to any other listings, and Variation listings, which are listings that are related as part of a variation family.

The main listings page provides a Family Type filter, which lets you filter for just Standalone or Variation listings, respectively.

While all variations within a single family are managed together on the same listing page, it's important to note that each variation is considered a distinct listing in Goflow. This means that each variation has its own unique SKU and is mapped to a specific product.

Creating New Variation Listing Family

To create a new family of variation listings, start from any one of the products in that family:

1. Go to Listings › Products.
2. Open any of the products you want in this family, and click New Listing.
3. Select the store, and select Variation Listing.
4. Select either Size, Color, or both. Then click Next.
5. Add the other variations to the list of Variation Products.
6. Fill in the listing attributes, and click Publish.

Editing an Existing Variation Listing Family

To edit an existing family of variation listings, start from any one of the products in that family:

1. Go to Listings › Listings.
2. Open any of the listings in the variation family, and click Manage Listing.
3. Make your desired changes. This may include any of the following:
   • Update listing attributes.
   • Add additional variations.
   • Deactivate some variations.
   • Change the Variation Types.
4. Click Publish.

Filling In Variation Listing Attributes

To understand variation listing attributes, first read the section on general listing attributes.

For variations, the attributes are split into four cards:

• The top card features the Parent SKU. This applies to the whole family of listings in general, and is not an actual listing in Goflow.

• Variation Products - This is the actual list of all different listings in this family, along with their mapped products. The Variation SKU is the SKU for each individual listing. The Size and Color describe the way each listing varies from the other listings in this family.

  The details for each variation is lower down, in the Variation Details card.

• Parent Details - Details that describe the product as a whole, without specifics about each variation. Shoppers searching on the store for these products may be shown the parent details in their search results.

  When filling in these attributes, Goflow automatically copies the attribute values into all variations. Change the details for each variation separately as needed. See below.

  The parent images are not automatically copied to all variations. To reuse the same images for all variations, click Copy to Variations.

• Variations Details - The details about each individual variation, respectively. Toggle between the different variations in the sidebar, then fill in all variation details on the right side.

  As mentioned above, Goflow automatically copies attribute values from the parent into all variations. To customize an attribute for a specific variation, simply change it here. The field will turn purple, to indicate that this attribute is no longer connected to the parent.

  The category cannot be changed per variation. The whole family always belongs to the same category.

Adding Additional Variations to a Family

Whether creating a new variation family or editing an existing family, you can easily add additional variations at any time.

1. In the Variation Products card, click Add + next to any product.
2. Select a product under Item Number, and enter a new Variation SKU.
3. Enter the Size and color, as necessary.

To add an existing Standalone listing as a variation of this family:

1. In the Variation Products card, open the Options ⋮ menu in the top right, and click Add Existing Listing.
2. Find the existing listings, and click Add Listing as Variation.

The existing Standalone listing will automatically be converted into a Variation listing of this family.

Deactivating Individual Variations in a Family

Existing variations can be deactivated or reactivated by editing the variation family. First find the variation in the Variation Products card, then:

• To deactivate the listing, click Deactivate x. The button will switch to a check ✓, indicating that it can now be reactivated.
• To reactivate the listing, click Activate ✓. The button will switch to an x, indicating that it can now be deactivated.

After making your changes, click Publish.

Individual variations can also be deactivated and reactivated by changing their status, just like Standalone listings.

To deactivate the whole family, simply deactivate all variations in the family.

Changing Variation Types of a Variation Family

The Variation Types are the attributes by which different listings in the family are distinguished from one another. A variation family may vary by Size, Color, or both.

The variation types may be changed by editing the variation family:

1. In the Variation Products card, open the Options ⋮ menu in the top right, and click Varies By...
2. Select either Size, Color, or both. Then click Update Variation Types.

After filling in the size and color for each listing, click Publish.

Converting a Standalone Listing to a Variation Listing

A standalone listing can be converted into a variation listing. You may add it to an existing variation family, or create a new variation family together with some other listings.

1. Go to Listings › Listings.

2. Open the listing you want to convert.

3. In the Status card, click the pencil icon next to Family Type and select Variation.

4. Choose whether to add it to an existing family, or create a new one:

   • Add to Existing Variation Family. Select any variation listing in the family. This listing will be added to that family as a new variation.

     Click Continue, update any attributes if necessary, and click Publish.

   • Create New Variation Family. Select the variation types, Size or Color, and click Continue.

     Add the other variations in this family, fill in all listing attributes, then click Publish.

All variations within a single family share the same category. When adding a standalone listing to an existing family, its category is updated to the family's category, as necessary.

Converting a Variation Listing to a Standalone Listing

A variation listing can be converted into a standalone listing. This removes the listing from its variation family, and publishes it as standalone.

1. Go to Listings › Listings.
2. Open the listing you want to convert.
3. In the Status card, click the pencil icon next to Family Type and select Standalone.
4. Click Save & Republish.

Creating Multiple New Listings In Bulk

Before you can create listings in bulk, it is important to understand listing attribute mapping. At a minimum, you must have the SKU attribute mapped in order to proceed with bulk listing creation.

Variation listings cannot be created in bulk.

To create listings in bulk, follow these steps:

1. Go to Listings › Products.
2. Select multiple products.
3. Click Actions › Create Listings.
4. Select the store, and select Manual as listing type, and click Create.

Understaning the Bulk Listings Feedback

The state of the mapped attributes and product field data, will determine the state of the newly created listings:

• Fully Created Listings - If all required listing attributes are mapped correctly and the product fields filled, the listings will be published successfully.
• Partially Created Listings: If some required attributes are not mapped, the listings will be created, albeit in Review. The missing attributes will need to be filled in before the listings can be published.
• Failed Listings: If the SKU attribute is not mapped, or if a listing with this SKU already exists, the listing cannot be created. Download the feedback file, which provides a list of SKUs that were not created.