Setting up a Bol.com API – Channable

This is a Help Center article of Channable, the tool for product feed management and marketplace integrations. If you don't have an account yet, sign up for free or learn how to integrate your online shop with Bol.com.

Do you want to learn interactively all basics related to the creation of an API export, or how to make an advanced setup for an API in Channable? Learn how to create a Channacademy account in the Channable app through this Help Center article and start with the Basic APIs or Expert APIs course.

Note I: This article assumes that you have already run listings for your products on Bol.com. If you want to create listings for the first time, see this article on how to add new products on Bol.com.

Note II: EAN codes are mandatory for Bol.com. Make sure you have valid EAN codes for all your products, otherwise you will not be able to send your products on the platform.

Note III: You must log out of your Bol.com account before creating a connection. Otherwise, the login will be done automatically and this can potentially cause problems later in the process.

Important: Your Bol.com login may expire after a certain amount of time of use. This will result in an "API failure" with an error message. To refresh your connection, follow the steps outlined in this article.

Step 1: Create a new Bol.com connection in Channable

To create a new Bol.com connection, click on "[Your company name at the top right] > Connections > +Add a connection". You will see this screen, where you can select Bol.com:

After selecting Bol.com, give a name to the connection and click on "Connect with Bol.com". Then, you will be redirected to your Bol.com seller account:

When you are logged into your Bol.com seller account and have accepted the terms and conditions, you will be redirected to Channable. Don't forget to click the blue "Add Connection" button to register your new connection.

Step 2: Create a new Bol.com API

You can now use this newly created connection. To do so, go to "APIs > +Add new API" and select your Bol.com connection. Please fill in the following information:

A name for the API
The unique ID per item. We recommend using the id field.
The content language. Please note that it is not possible to change these settings once they have been saved!
You can also decide to only send the content data to Bol.com. For more information on this feature, read this article.
Finally, you can also add a group of master rules (optional).

Click on "Continue" to start creating the product listings in the Bol.com API.

Step 3: Create your product listings

Setting up your product listings by following the 4 steps below.

Categories
Add categories to your products by using the generate categories feature or create new categories from scratch. You can also make use of our Smart Categorization which automatically matches your items to the most likely product category of Bol.com.
If Bol.com already knows the EAN codes of your products, you can create the listings without categorising your products. After running the API for the first time, in the case that your products are not recognised by Bol.com, you will see the following error in "Result": UNMATCHED_OFFER. To solve this error, please follow this article.
Rules
Create different rules to optimize your product data. For example, visit our article on common rules. Be sure to include the following three rules to avoid errors.

Rule 1: EAN codes check. Bol.com only accepts products with a valid EAN code. Thus, if a product EAN code is invalid, the following rule excludes this product.

Rule 2: Remove duplicates in additional images. With the following rule, Channable can verify if the additional images of each product contain duplicates of your main image. If the tool finds duplicates, the rule removes them.

Rule 3: Stock limit to 500. Bol.com does not accept products for which the stock is higher than 500. Therefore, you can set a limit to the stock if the latter goes over 500. However, sending a static stock for multiple days can cause issues on Bol, because Channable only sends changes to Bol.com. This means that if you keep sending a static stock of 500 at some point you won't be sending a stock at all and Bol thinks the product is out of stock. That's why you should always set up two rules alternating the stock between days.
Build
You can fill in the information in the template by clicking on the field and selecting an imported field or manually typing a value. For example, you can map your imported field title to the "Title" field of the template.

You should also fill in the shipping codes for your products here. For more information about this, you can read this article.

Tip! Note the question mark next to each field, if you hover over it with your mouse, you will see the description of the field and suggestions for possible values.

Note: In order to avoid errors, the "Comment" field should remain empty if the condition is set to Nieuw. Once the "Comment" field has been sent to Bol, you can only remove it by deleting the listings from Bol.com and sending them back without a comment.

In the Build step, you will find 3 other tabs in addition to the default template:
a. Volume discount. The volume discount feature allows you to set discounts for consumers who purchase more than one quantity of a product. To learn more about how to set up the volume discount in Channable, click here.
b. Price reduction. Bol.com offers a lower commission for certain products if they meet a specific maximum price. You can read how to activate it here.
c. Images. Here you link the images you want to send to Bol.com. You also have the option to select the display of images, but also other media assets. This article explains how to do this.
Once you are done filling in the information, simply click on "Save" at the bottom of the screen.
Attributes
In the "Attributes", select the category you want to optimize first. An example of what should be in front of you now can be seen in the screenshot below. A more detailed explanation can be found in our Attributes support article.

As aforementioned, we recommend that you try send your product listings to Bol.com without filing the attributes. If Bol.com already knows the EAN codes of your products, you will not need this step. Note that the attributes are automatically made unavailable if you have skipped the categorization prior to it.

Step 4: Remove old product listings from your Bol.com seller account

It is important that there are no old products in your account when you activate the Bol.com API in Channable in order to avoid any (synchronization) error. To delete old products, select "Artikelen > Mijn aanbod". Here you can select all products and delete them by clicking on "Bewerk aanbod > Verwijderen".

Note: The product information from your old listings will be kept in the Bol.com database after you have deleted them. In this case, you can thus skip the "Categories" and "Attributes" steps. However, you do need to fill out the entire "Build" step, which contains essential information for your offer. Your Bol.com reviews will also be saved and will not disappear when you empty your account. As soon as your products are available again via Channable, your reviews will also be visible.

Step 5: Send your products to Bol.com

Your products are ready to be sent. If your project is not active yet, go to "[Your project] > Settings > Activate project". Then go back to "APIs > [Your Bol.com API] > Settings > Activate API". Once this is done, you can run the API by clicking on the blue "Run now" button. This will immediately push the product listings to your Bol.com seller account.

Step 6: Solve possible errors

When the API is done running, the product listings have been sent to Bol.com. This means that you can verify possible errors in "Results > Errors". Here, errors that you products have are listed. If you click the error code, the exact affected products are displayed. You can try to solve these errors by creating additional rules or adjusting the information in the "Build" and "Attributes" steps. Run the API whenever you need to check if the errors are gone.

"Weak product information" for unknown EAN codes

If you are sending products with unknown EAN codes from the Bol.com database, it is possible that the products will appear in "Correct" in Channable but the message "Weak product information" will appear in your Bol.com seller account. This means that all the mandatory information for these products has not yet been sent to Bol. To resolve this error, we invite you to read this article on adding new products / unknown EAN on Bol.com.

Important: If you plan to list products classified as hazardous substances, you must ensure that they comply with the EU CLP (Classification, Labeling and Packaging) regulation. It is therefore mandatory to fill in the product characteristics for "signal word", "hazard statements" and "precautionary statement". You can fill in this information in the attribute builder of your API by searching for these Dutch words: "Signaalwoord", "Gevarenaanduidingen", "Voorzorgsaanduiding". You can view these products in your seller account by going to "My Products" and selecting the option "Low (online)" in the "Product Information" filter. This is where you will find the items for which the hazard information is still missing.

The product information on bol.com does not match the information you send via the API.

Bol.com partners sell millions of items through Bol.com, with each partner able to provide product information per item. This amount of information cannot be verified manually. Bol.com's algorithm therefore examines the product information provided by the partners, resulting in a score per partner. As a result, the product information of the partner with the highest score automatically appears online on a product page. By providing good product information, you improve your score. You can find more information about this in this Bol.com article.

Articles in this section