BigCommerce particularities

There are several particularities regarding the BigCommerce data that are to be considered when establishing and using the BigCommerce connection. These particularities are described in detail below. For detailed information on product data in BigCommerce, refer to the BigCommerce documentation.

Note that both the PIM module and BigCommerce use the term "product". However, the Omni-Channel module uses the term "offer". The same object is meant in each case.

Offer handling

You have the following options for exchanging offer data between Actindo and BigCommerce:

• If you have the PIM module in use, via the Omni-Channel module, you can export the product data needed for your BigCommerce store. This includes all merchant-specific additional fields from the PIM module.
• If you do not have the PIM module in use, you can export Omni-Channel offers directly.
• The following is relevant if you started using BigCommerce before your started using the Omni-Channel module. You can initially import your BigCommerce product data to Omni-Channel.
  Note, if you choose this way, you will not be able to import product changes again from BigCommerce to Actindo. In this case, you must change the offers on the Actindo side and export them to BigCommerce.
  For this reason, it is recommended to manage offer data at Actindo.

Export of offers

The following particularities are relevant when you export your offers from the Omni-Channel module to BigCommerce.

Custom fields

BigCommerce supports simple string values only. For this reason, only the following Actindo data types are supported as possible custom field values for attributes:

• Text field
• String
• Float
• Integer
• Date time

All data types that are no string values are converted to string. The length of a custom field string is limited to 255 characters.

To do:
Check your custom fields if they meet the requirements. If necessary, create new ones. For detailed information on changing and editing of attributes, see Manage an attribute in the DataHub documentation.

Images

The first image in the corresponding attribute is marked as thumbnail image for the offer. The alt text of an image will be added as description for that image. Every other field is not supported. For detailed information, see Check product images.

Videos

Offer videos are not supported by the driver. If you have a strong need to have videos available, contact your MPS consultant at Actindo.

Related products

Related products in BigCommerce are used differently than in the Actindo standard. Actindo assigns the related products from BigCommerce the Offer bundle data type. For detailed information, see Offer bundle in the DataHub documentation.
In the Actindo standard, the offer bundles define offers that complete an offer. For example, a power supply unit that is required in addition to a device and is part of the offer. In BigCommerce, on the other hand, the related products are used to present similar offers that may be of additional interest to the customer.
You can select related products in the corresponding attribute. You can select only those products as related if they exist as Omni-Channel offers for the BigCommerce connection. These offers are displayed in BigCommerce as related if they are uploaded from Actindo and if they are available in the shop.

To do:

1. Create offers which are applied to the BigCommerce connection. These offers have automatically been assigned to the attribute groups relevant for the BigCommerce connection. For detailed information on creating offers, see Manage the offers in the Omni-Channel documentation.

2. For each offer, check the Related product attribute. Make sure that it contains only related products that you both want to actively offer in the BigCommerce storefront and that you have previously imported to the Omni-Channel module.

   Importing a product with related products that have not yet been imported to the Omni-Channel module will not result in an error, but the related products will not be assigned.

Variants

Variant options

For detailed information on BigCommerce product variants, refer to the following BigCommerce documentation: https://developer.bigcommerce.com/docs/rest-catalog/product-variants#create-a-product-variant.
Since BigCommerce allows multiple types for variant options, the driver needs a way to determine the intended type for a variant option. In the connection settings, you can choose default presentation types such as drop-downs, radio buttons, or rectangles. For detailed information on these types, see Configure BigCommerce connection.

For certain cases, the color-swatch type is available, which requires specific configuration, see Configure color-swatch variant option.

Omni-Channel attributes to BigCommerce attributes

The Omni-Channel module allows to select any attribute as changeable, but BigCommerce allows only certain attributes to be changeable. The following attributes are declared as changeable in BigCommerce:

• Cost price
• Price
• Sale price
• Retail price
• Weight
• Width
• Height
• Depth
• Is free shipping
• Fixed cost shipping price
• UPC
• Inventory level
• Inventory warning level
• BIN
• GTIN
• MPN
• Image URL (only one thumbnail per variant)
• SKU

Multidimensional variants

Multidimensional variants are variant sets containing more than one variant option as defining attribute, for example size and color for clothes. The BigCommerce API allows creating variants by using variant options (defining attributes) and values (concrete characteristics of options). However, when creating an offer, the BigCommerce storefront will display more variants than those possible with Actindo's pre-defined options and values. As a result, your customers would be able to select and order offers in the BigCommerce storefront that do not exist.

For example, an offer is created by using the defining attributes Size and Color. By using these attributes, two variants are created – T-shirt-s-red (S, red) and t-shirt-m-green (M, green). The driver creates the following options and values:

• Size (S, M),
• Color (Green, Red)

The BigCommerce driver of Actindo creates only the variants "t-shirt-s-red" and "t-shirt-m-green", but the BigCommerce storefront presents all potential options and value pairings. This includes products such as t-shirt-s-green (S, green), which do not exist. These product variants are not only visible to the customers, but they can also order these non-existing products.

To do:
You must manage this issue by the storefront itself. In BigCommerce, you can access via the /v3/catalog/products/{productId}/variants API path all variants the driver has created.

Import of offers

The following particularities are relevant when you initially import BigCommerce products to the offers in the Omni-Channel module.

Shared variant options

BigCommerce has shared variant options that allow you to easily create variants once and then apply them to multiple products with a single click. These shared variants cannot be modified in any way using the API:

• The driver can import offers with shared variant options, but you are not able to edit them after the import.
• The driver cannot manage any changes after the import in the BigCommerce UI. Changing shared variant options after an import will cause Omni-Channel offer updates to fail.

To do:
Before the first import of offers, check your variant options in BigCommerce. It is strongly recommended not to use shared variant options. To check it, see your BigCommerce store under Products > Product options > Shared options tab. Remove any shared option that might be available there.

Instead, you can use the variants you can add to a product or an offer in the PIM or the Omni-Channel module.

Import of orders

The following particularities are relevant when you import your orders from BigCommerce to the Omni-Channel module.

The import of offers is supported by the BigCommerce driver. You can filter the orders that are to be imported. For detailed information, see Configure BigCommerce connection.

The driver manages the following data:

• Contained products
• Billing address
• One shipping address
• Sales channels
  All sales channels that you connect via BigCommerce are handled as sub sales channels. This architecture enables you to run multiple stores in BigCommerce.

Data that is not included in the above list is not included in the order import. For example, you may be interested in the following data, which is not part of the order import:

• Gift wraps
• More than one shipping address
• Customer IDs
  Actindo does not use the customer IDs of BigCommerce to prevent potential inconsistencies with already existing customer IDs. Instead, Actindo automatically creates a new customer ID, if the imported data does not match an existing Actindo customer.

If you have a strong need to have this data available, contact your Actindo MPS consultant.

Multiple shipping addresses

Although BigCommerce allows multiple shipping addresses, Actindo supports the import of one shipping address only. Any orders that use multiple shipping addresses cannot be imported and will fail during the import.
For detailed information, see Manage multiple shipping addresses.

Discounts

BigCommerce supports only one single discount coupon per order. These coupons cannot be managed in the Omni-Channel module and subsequent processes in Actindo. For this reason, used discount coupons (name and code) are displayed in Omni-Channel as custom attributes on each line item.
BigCommerce processes discounts before taxes. To manage the discounts later in the Accounting module, the driver splits discounts on each line item, adds them, and calculates a net discount value using the line items tax rate. Because of that even “discount in percent” discounts will be output as absolute values on each line item.

Order status updates

Order delivery statuses

The driver supports updates on the order statuses, but BigCommerce can only manage a few Omni-Channel statuses. The order statuses are assigned as follows:

Order payment statuses

This feature is not supported, as BigCommerce does not allow an update of the payment status. This has no effects on subsequent processes in Actindo such as accounting.

Shipments

Note that BigCommerce allows only specific values for tracking the carrier of a shipment. You can only use one of these values, otherwise the export of the shipment will fail.
For detailed information on the supported carriers, see the BigCommerce documentation in GitHub under https://github.com/bigcommerce/dev-docs/blob/main/assets/csv/tracking_carrier_values.csv.