Let's get this started with an explanation of what a Refresh is...
Based on the Refresh option you select, this function will resend any adds, edits, or deletes that have happened in your inventory to the Venue you're selecting to receive your Refresh.
Where do you find Refresh options?
You can send a Refresh in two different locations of your AOB account.
- Venue Settings near the top of the page is a Refresh Venues link between the browse path and the Amazon North American Settings.
- Tools menu look to the top left section of your Tools menu to see a large block of your various Refresh options.
What the Refresh options look like...
- Refresh options that you have available are only the Venues that you have set as Active in Venue Settings
- Each Venue Refresh option allows you to resend only Active inventory (any item with a positive quantity) or only Deletes (any items with a quantity of zero).
- eBay has the addition of resending only items that are not already listed to eBay (somewhat clarified further down)
When do you need a Refresh...
- The most common need for sending a Refresh is when you have changed any of the settings at Inventory Settings > Listing Constraints/Options. This is where the 'Refresh Inventory not yet on eBay' option can become important. Let's say, for example, that you had a Min. List Price set at $10 for eBay and eBay starts a promotion offering free listings so you decide you want to allow items to list at $5. You don't want to insert your entire inventory into the upload queue for eBay since you only need those items that were not previously listed, so after changing the value of the Min. List Price and saving the page, you will want to Refresh eBay by selecting only the 'Refresh inventory not yet on eBay' option.
- Another example using this same table of settings; say you want to offer a Sale on ABE where you lower your prices for a period of two weeks. Enter your negative price raise and then Refresh that venue to send the price change. Then send another Refresh two weeks later when you remove that price change to put your prices back the way they were. There are so many varied settings that you can change so I'll not go on, but I hope I've given the idea of how that works for you.
- When you have Repriced and you wish to update eBay's prices. (This only pertains to eBay and is due to their receiving only single-item files in their uploads)
- Another good time to send a Refresh is if you are coming back from vacation and have removed any Vacation Setting on a Venue. Sending a Refresh will ensure that your venue has your most recent copy of the inventory you have for sale.
When do you NOT need to Refresh...
- When you have uploaded a file of Inventory to your AoB account it is not necessary to send a Refresh to get those items listed on your Venues. Items are queued for upload to your Venues as they are processed into your account and will be uploaded once the processing of a file is completed.
- When you are auto-repricing and the venue is any Venue other than eBay. (This is especially important for Amazon since we send only sku/price to Amazon when you've repriced in order to lower the risk of relisting items that have sold in the interim. If you Refresh Amazon after a reprice then you're also sending quantity as well as creating unnecessary traffic in your Feeds.)
- When you neglected to update AoB Venue Settings with new passwords after having changed them on the site and you only notice a week after the fact. After updating the Venue Settings with your new password you do NOT have to send a Refresh to your venue. Items that can not be uploaded to a venue due to an invalid login will remain in the upload queue until such a time as they can be sent to that venue.
- When you believe a Venue is not displaying your listings on its first pages. A Refresh does not affect the placement of your items on the venue.
Interesting Refresh Trivia...
Q: Ever notice that sometimes the Tools page takes longer to load than other times?
A: The script that does your Refresh tracks the volume of your upload queue, so depending on how actively you've been adding inventory (this applies mostly to those who upload files for their inventory needs), or how many times you've mad-clicked the Refresh buttons already, you could have a very full upload queue and it could take a few moments to count all those files.
Q: You might be asking, should the script that does a Refresh stalk you?
A: Yes! This is so that it can disable your Refresh options when your upload queue hits 10K items. When this happens you will find your Refresh options are grayed and you can not check their box.
Q: Why should Delete Refreshes to eBay be approached with caution?
A: This is a bigger thing than it appears at first for some more than it is for others. When you resend deletes to most Venues the script is going to push all of your zero-quantity SKUs into the upload queue for the selected Venue. Due to eBay's unique upload needs of each item being in its own file, this Refresh option only resends deletes that have had an eBay Item ID assigned at some point. This somewhat limits the amount of activity in your upload queue, but it can still add quite a bit of volume. And since deletes go to your Venues first if you're trying to see a new item on the venue that you've just listed you could be in for a bit of a wait.
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