Key Concepts

A product is any article that can be sold on bol. It is defined by its European Article Numbering code (EAN), and enriched with descriptions, pictures, and other content.

If the product you wish to sell is not yet available on bol, you can use the Product Content API to add it. You can also use this API to update product information.

If a product is offered on the website by a retailer or by bol itself, this results in an offer. An offer is defined by the combination of product (EAN), retailerID, condition category (new/secondhand) and condition name (for example new, as new). Additionally, an offer must always contain a price and delivery promise.

For example, if two retailers offer the same product for a different price on bol, this results in two different offers. Also, one retailer can have two offers on the website for the same product: one with condition new and one with condition used.

When a customer purchases one or more items on bol, an order is created. The order contains of one or more order items. Each order item contains an EAN, offer reference, quantity, price, customer reference, and other relevant fields.

Later process flows all refer to the relevant orders and order items.

All other process flows are related to one of the previous concepts. A shipment is created when one or more order items are sent to the customer, a return is created when a customer wants to return an order item and a cancellation is used to cancel an order or order item. bol determines its commissions based on the products.

The full process flow of selling on bol is described here.