Build an Item Catalog

Before you can begin implementing a shopping cart workflow with Retail Order Management’s APIs, you must create a catalog of items that customer can buy in your store. To create the item catalog, use the Item Master feed. The Item Master feed is an SFTP directory set up to accept files that conform to its XML schema. After you upload an XML file, the Radial Product Hub reads the file and transforms its data for consumption by Retail Order Management’s subsystems.

Tip: You might find it easier to use a subset of your store’s catalog in initial testing. In the test environment, your Item Master file should include a representative sample of data with enough variety to support a range of test cases, but it does not have to include your store’s entire catalog.

The process of building an item catalog typically includes the following stages:

During a discovery session, Radial personnel provide a detailed walkthrough of the Item Master data elements. The meeting should help you understand how to map your store’s data to the elements in the Item Master schema.
Radial personnel set up your feed mailbox and give you its location and password.
With the guidance of the Item Master feed documentation and schema, you prepare an Item Master test file.
You use any SFTP tool to upload the test file to the mailbox.
Radial processes the file and contacts you with results – whether it processed successfully, and if any errors occurred.
If necessary, you create and upload further iterations of your Item Master test file, until the results are fully successful.

While building your item catalog, be sure to include the specific information needed for tax calculation. For details, see Obtain HTS Tax Codes for Each Product.

There are several other data feeds for loading different kinds of information into Retail Order Management. Depending on your specific integration goals, you might need to implement additional feeds.