Products Overview

Products are at the very heart of the zDirect API, and it is worth spending some time to be sure you understand this topic before proceeding.

In the Merchant Center, a product is an item for sale, such as a model of shoes or a watch, along with all of its options and variants. For example, the "BOSS EVENING Smart lace-ups" is one product - in this case, a model of shoe. The product definition includes every size option.

Each Zalando product is defined in the Zalando Catalog, which is the master database of products. Each product definition contains all of the information necessary for us to create a product entry on a Zalando Fashion Store website.

All products have one and only one entry in the Zalando Catalog. All partners who sell a particular product use the same product entry in the Zalando catalog. Different partners set their own price and available stock for each product.

For an in-depth look at products and how they are modeled by zDirect, see Understanding Products.

Products during Initial Integration

Initial Integration is the entire process by which partners prepare to offer products for sale through Zalando sales channels, from initial contact all the way through Go Live. It includes several business and technical steps which must be completed in order for products to be sold.

There are three core technical steps of Initial Integration which must be completed using the zDirect API:

Onboarding Stage	Description	APIs
Product Onboarding	Submitting all of your products to the Zalando Catalog.	Products Product Attributes Product Submissions
Setting Price	Setting prices for each product per sales channel.	Prices
Setting product availability	Setting the level of available stock for each product.	Stocks

Preparing to Go Live requires additional business steps which must be managed by your Integration Manager. Some steps have both a technical and a business management component, so it is important to coordinate during this process.

For detailed information on the product onboarding process, see Products Onboarding below.

For more information on this process from a business perspective, see Zalando Partner University.

Products after Initial Integration

Many partners focus most heavily on products during the product onboarding phase of Initial Integration, and that is the focus of this documentation.

However, you may use the APIs described in this section to add products to the Zalando catalog and to set price and stock at any time, including during Live Business Management.

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