A catalog integration enables you to manage products and orders from Tipser by Bolt using your normal workflow, whether that involves another ecommerce platform or not.
Integration types
Tipser by Bolt offers five types of integrations to populate products into your catalog.
| Integration type | Description | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Plug-in API | An easy setup process in which the merchant creates a custom API and sends Tipser by Bolt the API keys. | Merchants who use Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, or Shopware as an ecommerce platform |
| Automatic (touchless) | Tipser by Bolt uses crawler and checkout bots to get product and order details and synchronize your systems. Optionally, replace the crawler bot with an export API. | Merchants that has a different ecommerce platform from the ones listed above, but a catalogue big enough to exclude a manual integration |
| Manual | The merchant directly uploads products and fulfills orders in the Merchant Portal. There is minimal integration needed because the merchant does not use several systems. | Merchants with a small catalogue selection and/or that request a high level of editing access. |
| Custom API | Customized implementation via API | Merchants with large product catalogues, complex backend configuration, or bespoke platforms |
| Feed Integration | Product Import via an XML or JSON feed file | Merchants on other ecommerce platforms |
In addition, it may be possible to use a hybrid approach for your implementation. For example, if you love the order fulfillment workflow of your ecommerce platform, you could use an automatic integration for product synchronization and a plug-in API approach to order management. Work with your Customer Success Manager to determine the right approach for your business.
Automatic (touchless)
Inventory Integration
Tipser by Bolt’s crawler bots regularly check your web shop and update your Tipser by Bolt product catalog with any changes.
If a shopper finds your product on a publisher's site, Tipser by Bolt validates that the item is in stock and confirms the correct price before making it available for checkout in the publisher.
Order Integration
When a customer places an order, Tipser by Bolt's checkout bots synchronise the order information between your web shop and the Tipser by Bolt Merchant Portal.
We'll also keep your systems synchronised during order fulfillment, when you sent order and shipping confirmation emails to your customers.
This diagram describes how Tipser by Bolt's bots interact with the purchasing flow:
To learn more about the order and payment flow, please read the article How an Order and It's Payment Flow to a Merchant with Touchless (Automatic) Integration.
If you're interested in using Tipser by Bolt API to export the product feed instead of a crawler bot, your technical team can refer to our Export API reference documentation.
Plug-in API
The plug-in API method also automatically pulls product and order information between systems, but it does so without using crawler and checkout bots. Tipser by Bolt has built plug-in APIs for several of the most popular e-commerce platforms:
Manual product and order management
If you don't need to integrate Tipser by Bolt with another system, you can manually manage products and orders from the Tipser by Bolt Merchant Portal.
Directly upload products and fulfill orders on the Tipser by Bolt Merchant Portal without any synchronisation from your web shop.
Learn more:
Custom API
Large, complex, or bespoke systems can require a more flexible integration to work seamlessly with Tipser. Refer to the Tipser REST API documentation for more information.
Feed Import
Tipser by Bolt can read a complete feed of product data from the merchant source system that returns all available products.
The preferred format is in either XML or JSON, but Tipser by Bolt can handle feeds from most e-commerce platforms. A more detailed specification can be worked out based on the available feeds in the source system (the merchant's system).
Tipser by Bolt prefers a structure where all variants are nested into the Product, but a flat product structure could also be stitched together given that there's a VariantId or GroupId that specifies what products belong into the same group.
Live Update
To keep stock count , availability and prices as accurate as possible, Tipser by Bolt has implemented the possibility to check this data on the fly, e.g. as soon as a visitor requests this data in the frontend, or when the shopping cart is loaded. This way Tipser by Bolt prevents selling products that are out of stock.
Ensuring Product Quality
The better the quality of your products, the higher the chance of selling the products. Here are some tips:
- Make sure that we can match variants. item_group_id field should have the same value for product with variants. Product with variants is the same product in multiple sizes, colors etc. All clothing should have the size attribute. The same attribute should have unique value among other variants.
- Images should be of good quality and the more of them, the better. A minimum for good product is three images (image_link, additional_image_link fields).
- Description should be detailed and contain all the information customer might be interested in.
- Include delivery time in your feed or inform us what's the default delivery time for all your orders.
- Items with free shipping sell best, consider it (shipping field).
- Include google product category in the feed, so we can make your product searchable easier (google_product_category field).
- Include GTIN number (gtin field).
- Take good care of the availability of your products, make sure to inform us about the stock count (quantity field).
- If the product is targeted to specific gender, add this information in the feed (gender field)
Feed Specification
Our preferred feed format is Google Merchant Feed (GMF). You can find its specification here. GMF can be delivered both as XML or CSV files. Examples in CSV and XML are attached to this page.