Incomplete product information

OT API Key allows to transfer product catalog and search from various popular marketplaces to the site, as well as information about products necessary to organize their sale to customers.

At the same time, product information has a large number of parameters: identifier, images, title, description, price, configurations, seller and others. Different product providers may have a different set of product information parameters.

We use different ways to get information from marketplaces from Taobao API to our own search methods. After receiving information from the marketplace, all products are transferred to OpenTrade Commerce database. After that they are transferred from OpenTrade Commerce database to online stores using OT API Key. Learn more how our system works here.

Therefore, we can show different products with complete and incomplete information by obtaining product information from different sources.

A full request or a normal API request is used to obtain product with complete information. Full information is all available information about product in our database.

In order to make incomplete request, specify in API that any information about the product is sufficient. Mandatory parameters for an incomplete item request include identifier, image and name. This can be specified in a special itemParameters parameter of any item retrieval method, for example in BatchGetItemFullInfo. More details can be found in API documentation. 

Exception! Due to the fact that pricing information is often unavailable for JD provider. There is a special setting for it. Depending on it, price can be a mandatory or optional parameter for JD products.

There are many different marketplaces or product providers connected to our system. We get different information for each of them. Sometimes seller is missed, sometimes price is not indicated. But goods with incomplete information can still be shown to buyers.

If you allow to show incomplete information in API and there are all the necessary parameters (ID, image and name) but there is no price, the

Thus, buyers can view products with incomplete information but they can not order them. This is done specifically to avoid failures at the stage of order processing.

Call counting for requests with incomplete information

System will generate an error if any mandatory parameter is missing when requesting incomplete information about a product. Such request will be free, as user has not received any information about the product.

For example, request will fail if product has no identifier but has a picture and a name. Request will be successful only if all mandatory parameters are available. In this case a request will be paid.

In case of incomplete request for product information, the availability of any other information besides mandatory parameters is unpredictable.

Full product information request

If full information about a product is requested and our system doesn’t have it, but it has all the required

parameters, an error message will be displayed: product is unavailable. Such request will be free of charge.

We will not show product if request allows incomplete items but there is no information about the item. This request will also be free of charge. In this case our system will receive all available information about the product in priority mode, and the next request for this product will show it within 10-30 seconds. Such a request will be paid.

Request will be paid if we already have complete or incomplete product information in our system.

Important! We have our own data completeness marker. If during data collection process, we receive a message within our system that information is complete the product is considered to contain complete data. That’s the one marker that influences whether a request will give full data request an error or success.