Managing inventory

You can use MIP to manage your inventory through feed types, response files, and reports.

Feed types for managing inventory

This topic describes MIP feeds used to manage inventory, when to use each of them, the requirements for using them.

When to use Inventory Management feeds

MIP uses different types of feed files to create or update eBay listings that contain product details, price and quantity, and more.

You can use feed files in the initial creation of product information. For example, you can use Product, Availability, and Distribution feeds to add the information, or use only a Product Combined feed.

You can also use feed files to perform ongoing updates. For example, use the Inventory feed to upload rapid price and quantity changes.

Feed types for managing inventory

Each MIP feed has a specific purpose and a specific set of requirements (contents). The following table shows the feed types you can use to manage your inventory, and their purpose.

Feed Type	Purpose	Description
Product	Provides product information to eBay for the initial product load, or updates product information	A product feed is required, either as a Product feed or as part of a combined feed (Product Combined). Includes the SKU, title, description, variants (such as sizes and colors), channel, locale, pricing information, quantity, and business policy information
Product Combined	Combines all information from the product, availability, and distribution feeds to simplify and shorten the time to upload product information to eBay	Includes the SKU, title, description, variants (such as sizes and colors), channel, locale, pricing information, quantity, and business policy information, as well as ship to home quantity, store availability, and pricing
Availability	Provides quantity information to eBay	Contains SKU, ship to home quantity, and store availability fields.
Availability-bopis	Sets parameters for buying products online and picking them up locally instead of having them shipped	Includes the buy online, pickup-in-store quantity information for your products
Distribution	Provides pricing and business policy information for each eBay site on which you sell your products	Includes pricing, business policies, listing category, item specifics, and other relevant listing features
Inventory	Updates the prices and available quantities of products already on the eBay site	Updates information about sales channels, prices, total quantity of SKUs available, and the quantity of SKUs available on each sales channel
Location	Provides warehouse and store locations where the seller has inventory	Adds or updates the addresses of the locations or warehouses where the products are stored. For BOPIS/C&C inventory, store hours can also be supplied.
Order Fulfillment	Updates shipping information about purchased products	Includes products shipped to buyers, how they were shipped, and carrier tracking numbers
Product search	Finds specified products in the eBay catalog	Uses product identifiers to search the entire eBay catalog for specific products
Delete-inventory	Deletes specified listings from the sellers inventory and from the eBay site	Uses SKUs to delete specific listings from the eBay site

Inventory management response files

When you upload a feed to eBay, MIP generates a response file that confirms what you uploaded and reports whether MIP successfully processed the information. If an error occurs, MIP generates an error message that provides information about the error and what caused it. Response files can be downloaded from both the MIP user interface and the secure file server (SFTP)(see FTP setup).

Using inventory management response files

When you upload any of the following feed types to eBay, MIP processes the feed file and then generates a response file that confirms what you uploaded and reports whether MIP successfully processed the information or not.

• Product
• Availability
• Distribution
• Combined
• Inventory
• Location
• Product-search
• Delete-inventory

If an error occurs and the upload is not successful, MIP generates an error message that includes detailed information about the error and what caused it. Users then know how to correct any errors in their upload feeds, and can successfully upload them.

Response files are in the same format as the feed you upload. That is, if your feed is a CSV file, the response for that feed is also CSV; if your feed is XML, the response file for that feed will also be XML.

Obtaining a response file

You can download response files either with the MIP user interface or use FTP with the file server.

File feed logs and archive folders are for debugging. These are available for up to 90 days through SFTP. For up to 30 days, you can get this information using the Merchant Integration Platform user interface.

To download response files with the MIP user interface:

• Select the type of feed (for example, Product) whose response file you want to download. In the Results file column, click Download. If prompted, click Open to review the file in a browser or click Save to download the file to your computer.

To download response files from the MIP file server:

• Open the feed folder, and then the output folder. For example, open the product folder, then open the output folder. In the output folder, folders are labeled with time-stamps. The time-stamp correlates to when the feed file was uploaded. Open the folder to get the response file for the latest upload. Use the FTP client to download the response file to your computer.

When to use a response file

eBay recommends that you download the response files after each upload to make sure that the intended results of your uploaded feed file were all completed successfully.

About inventory management reports

MIP also generates reports that you can use to help manage your inventory and orders. See Report for more information.