eBay is one of the world’s most popular marketplaces. For businesses that want to reach the widest possible audience for their products, the auction site is a shop window that is difficult to ignore. Magento allows anyone who is involved in ecommerce to integrate selling via eBay with their other online sales activities.
The first thing that is necessary in order to integrate Magento and eBay is an extension called M2E Pro. This extension is available as a free download from Magento Connect. As well as allowing users to integrate Magento with eBay, M2E Pro also allows integration with Amazon. This turns Magento into the central hub of your online sales push, saving time and allowing creative approaches to get your products in front of potential customers.
When selecting which version of M2E Pro to install, make sure that it is the correct one for your version of Magento. For Magento Community Edition up to version 1.4, this will be the version in Connect Channel 1.0. For later versions of the Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition, the correct version will be in Connect Channel 2.0.
To install the appropriate version of M2E Pro, you copy the extension key from Connect and paste it into the appropriate field in your Magento Store Admin Connect Manager. The software will then install your new extension.
With M2E Pro installed, you can easily synchronise your stock levels, pricing and product details across all 23 of the world’s eBay marketplaces, along with those from Amazon. You can also manage multiple accounts within eBay and can use M2E Pro with multiple Magento Stores.
The content of listings on eBay and the other marketplaces are set via a number of templates. The Selling Format Template contains data about the price, auction duration, quantity and listing type. The Description Template sets how a product listing will look on the sites. The General Template contains basic information needed to create a listing on eBay. Finally, the Synchronisation Template allows you to set how data is synchronised between eBay and Magento.
A wide range of different strategies can be employed for different listings using the various rules within the templates. Actions like relisting an item can be scheduled to happen at a time of your choosing. You can also choose to synchronise data in one listing but not in another.
In order to speed up the management of listings on eBay, bulk commands can be given for any number of items that are listed on the site. M2E Pro can manage listings regardless of whether they were made using M2E Pro or directly via eBay.
Any transaction completed on eBay can be imported into Magento via M2E Pro. This means that when an item is bought via eBay, a matching Magento order will be created. Similarly, when you mark an item as shipped, the eBay transaction will be updated to that effect. Data, like tracking numbers, is also passed on to eBay from the Magento order. Automatic responses to feedback received via eBay can also be generated using M2E Pro. Different responses can be set for different eBay accounts.
M2E Pro also logs every action that is undertaken for each listing. This allows users to go back and review what has been successful and what has not, in order to improve their approach to creating listings in future. Logs can be cleaned up so that only the relevant information is left for the user.
With M2E Pro, Magento becomes the cornerstone of a successful online retailing strategy. It allows businesses to get on with selling their goods more efficiently using a single tried and trusted interface.
