How channels work
The channel model: listings derived from one catalog, per-channel rules, and sync direction decided per data type.
On this page
A channel is anywhere a customer can buy. Storefronts, marketplaces, social shops, POS tills and B2B portals are all the same kind of object here, which is what allows the sixth one to cost roughly what the second one cost.
Listings are derived, never duplicated
You do not maintain a marketplace catalog. You maintain a catalog, and a channel derives listings from it through mapping.
A listing holds only what is specific to that channel: the mapped category, any field transformations, an optional price override, and the channel's own identifiers once it has accepted the listing. Everything else is a reference back to the product.
Sync direction is per data type
The most important setting on a channel is which side wins for each kind of data.
| Data | Usual direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Product content | Hub → channel | You own the catalog |
| Price | Hub → channel | Unless a marketplace repricer is in play |
| Stock | Hub → channel | Availability derives from one pool |
| Orders | Channel → hub | The channel is where the sale happened |
| Fulfilment | Hub → channel | You ship, the channel is told |
| Returns | Both | Started either side, resolved in the hub |
Anything set to bidirectional needs a tiebreak, which is always last-write-wins with the source recorded on the change. If two systems fight over a field for a week, the audit log will show it plainly.
Channel types
Your own commerce sites, reading availability and pricing directly.
Feed-based, latency-prone, taxonomy-heavy. Buffers matter most here.
Catalog feeds for social shops and shopping ads.
Same stock pool, different pricing and different routing rules.
Per-channel rules
Each channel carries its own:
- Eligibility — which products and which locations it may sell.
- Pricing — a price list, a markup, or per-listing overrides.
- Buffer — how much stock is held back against feed latency.
- Fulfilment policy — which locations it can be routed to and in what order.
- Content transforms — title patterns, attribute maps, image derivatives.
Rules are evaluated at listing time and again at order time, so a product that becomes ineligible stops being sold rather than quietly failing at fulfilment.
Health, not hope
Every channel reports its own state: last successful sync, queued changes, rejected listings with the channel's own error text, and oversell events. A channel that has silently stopped syncing shows as stale rather than as green.
Next: Connectors, which is the practical business of getting one connected.
