FLIPKART 

INTEGRATION DOCUMENT

About Flipkart

Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, and registered in Singapore. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials, groceries, and lifestyle products.

Flipkart v3.0 basically follows a Multi-warehouse Dropship fulfillment method* in which Flipkart processes the order and delivers it to buyers via Flipkart’s own logistic E-kart (80%) and other third-party logistics (3PL) partners like Delhivery etc. 

Business Model

Flipkart has an Inventory based model and a Marketplace model. In inventory based they create their own Inventory of products and dispatch the order from their own warehouses while the Marketplace model has the main role of sellers. They pass on the order to the seller and take commission or selling fee in return and the order is to be picked from the seller center and then delivered to the customer. Flipkart follows a crystal-clear Business-to-Consumer model or commonly known as a B2C model. It works as a Marketplace which means that it is a middle platform that connects all interested sellers to various customers and assists in making the sale. With over 80 categories, Flipkart has sellers for all items, ranging from groceries, toiletries, clothes, books, shoes, furniture, electronics, etc

Below is the List of Integration available for Flipkart Marketplace to configure in Vin e-Retails:

1. Flipkart v3.0 (Multi Warehouse) *
2. Flipkart Assured 
3. Flipkart Smart 
4. Flipkart Gud

* In this document, we will learn about the integration of the Flipkart V 3.0 (multi-warehouse) model.

Integration Highlights

In this integration with Flipkart, Vin E-retail supports Product listing, Order Fulfilment, and Return Management. We provide the below services:

1. SKU Pull 
2. Order Pull and Order Fetch 
3. Order Pack/Invoice/Shipping Label generation 
4. Shipment Label Prefetch 
5. Order Shipment 
6. Download Marketplace Manifest 
7. Order Return 
8. Inventory Update
9. Inventory Reconciliation
10.  

Prerequisites

Mandatory Credentials

Below mentioned credentials are mandatory and required to configure Flipkart V3 multi-warehouse integration for any seller in Vin E-retail.

1. API Key & Password
2. Location ID
3. Seller ID
4. Flipkart User ID & Password

In the below sections, we will explain how users can get these IDs & passwords.

• Visit the given link – https://api.flipkart.net/oauth-register/login
• Enter the Seller registered email address and password

• Click on the “Register new Application” for Application ID.

             

 

•  Fill in the details as given below”

          (i) Enter “Application name” and “Application Description” as per your choice as both are free text fields.

          (ii) Choose “Application Type” as “Self-Access Application.”

          (iii) Scope – Leave as it is

          (iv) Redirect URL –Leave as it is

          (v) Click to “Register this application.

          (vi) As soon as you will register this application your Application Id (API Key) and Secret Key (API Password) will be visible to you.                

(Note: For confidentiality reasons, we do not share these details in the snapshot.)

2. Location ID – To fetch the location id, kindly follow below steps:

• Login to https://seller.flipkart.com/ 
• Enter with the Login ID & password              
• Go to Orders Section.
  

  
  

   

  •  Click on the Right mouse click on the webpage and select the Inspect button. 

  • Go to the “Network” section.

  • Select Location from the dropdown.

  • Click on fetch?sellerid=
  • Scroll down and you will get the location Id and seller Id both in the header section.
    

  
  

4. Flipkart User Id/Password - This required credential will be shared by Seller/Brand once it is registered on Flipkart Marketplace. 

 
Once all the above IDs are available, i.e., Flipkart ID, Seller ID, API Key, API password, Location ID, etc are available, go to Vin E-retails instances.

Channel Configuration

1. Once all the above IDs are gathered, open your vin e-retail instance (ERP), go to Sales>Manage Channels.

2. Go to the top right-hand side of the window and click on “Add New.”

3. Select the required channel from the list.

4.  Fill in all the details like Channel Name, order Source WH, Order Sync from date, Return Sync from Date, SKU Pull from Date, Inventory Sync Method, Enable Inventory Reconciliation, etc.

5. Click on Configure interface link. Fill in all the credentials generated from the Flipkart API and Flipkart Seller portal.

6. Enable the is Self-Ship Flag to “YES” If the client is using the seller Ship mode Else select this as NO If the order is Ship by Marketplace.

 

7. Enter the Seller ID, API Key, If Self Ship, Username (Flipkart ID), API Password, Location ID, and Flipkart User ID password.

8. Click “OK” and hit the “Save” button. The channel is successfully created and will be visible in the manage channel screen.

CHANNEL MAINTENANCE

Channel Maintenance setup helps the seller reduce manual intervention and avoid the multiple usages of the marketplace seller portal. With the selection of below options at Channel Maintenance window (Sales > Manage Channels > Add New > Select FlipkartV3.0 Multiwareouse) in Vin E-retails instance, User can get the advantage of using multiple features of Vin E-retail:

S.No.	Features	Where to Click on Channel Maintenance	Dropbox/Checkbox	Details
1	SKU Pull	Channel SKU >  SKU SYNC >  Pull/Push		SKU Sync: SKU Sync between Channel and e-Retail can be done via PULL & PUSH. Users can choose to Pull the SKU’s from the channel to the e-Retail panel. And User can choose Push to send the SKU data or changes from e-Retail to the channel.
2	Order Pull/ Order Pack/ Invoice/ Order Shipment/ Shipping label generation	Orders > Order Sync >  Yes/No		Order Pull: The user can choose to sync the order from the channel to e-Retail by managing this option. If this is disabled, the Order pull will not happen also the shipping label/Invoice and manifest will not get generated.
3	Order Return	Orders >  Return Order Sync		Users can click this option to sync Return Orders.  Important Note: In Return Pull Services, the “Return” is always created in Confirmed status.     Users need to do an inbound from Return Inbound functionality available on the Application.
4	Prefetch Shipment Label	Orders >  PrePack Enabled checkbox		PrePack Enabled: The user can enable prepack for the order from here. To avoid delay in Order processing and Shipment fulfilled within a provided SLA, we have a feature to pull Flipkart shipment Label and Invoice at the same time of picklist generation instead of during Pack Call. To use this functionality, we just need to enable the Prepack checkbox available under the Channel Configuration setup screen and the user needs to click on Prefetch deliveries during the pending picklist status available on the Picklist enquiry screen.
5	Ready to Ship Status at	Orders > Ready to ship at		Users can choose to mark the status of ready to ship at any of the two events: -at Manifest or -at Pack
6	Use Market Place Shipping Label	Orders > Use Marketplace Shipping label checkbox		Users can check this option to notify the Shipping label by the marketplace and then opt from the Shipment label dropbox.
7	Inventory update	Inventory > Inventory Sync		If selected "Yes" from the dropdown box, it automatically pulls and updates the inventory.
8	Inventory Reconciliation	Inventory > Enable Inventory Recon		By clicking Inventory Recon as “Yes,” it enables Vin E-retail to reconcile the inventory. (* It is only scheduled for once/day) Despite Inventory Sync, at times, there is a possibility of Inventory mismatch which can lead to a penalty by Flipkart as the seller continues to receive the order for which the physical inventory is not available.  By clicking Inventory Recon as “Yes,” it enables Vin E-retail to reconcile the inventory.  (* It is only scheduled for once/day)

 Additional Key Benefits: - 

 

1. SKU Pull:  From Flipkart v3 SKU Pull Service, we will pick Flipkart SKU Code and Flipkart Serial Number (FSN) as a PID. The user needs to map it against the e-Retail SKU code from the Unmapped tab available on SKU Channel Listing Screen.  (Sales > SKU Channel Listing > Unmapped SKU) 

 

2. Marketplace Manifest: Instead of downloading Flipkart Manifest from Seller Portal, our system is also integrated to pull Flipkart Manifest from the Seller portal. It will be downloaded from the Application once the order is moved in Shipped Status. (WMS > Order Processing > Delivery Shipping > Download Marketplace Manifest > Show pending records)

 

 

Common Issues and errors: 

 

1. Issue in Inventory Push 

 

This is the case where out-of-stock orders get placed in the system. So, even if 0 inventory is sent successfully; still Pending stock orders are coming in ERP. This is a known issue at Flipkart’s end where they allow the customers to place the order even after having zero inventory and later mark the order as Marketplace Cancelled (No penalty charged from the seller for such cases). This is also fixed by the E-retail team.

 

2. Error in Order Pack: 

• Pack Label Not Found AuthExceptionError_| 400: Bad Request. with Flipkart Error: -INVALID_SHIPMENTS|Invalid shipment Ids passed. This error occurred because on Flipkart also the label status is “label generation in progress.” 

 

Below is the screenshot to check the same.

 

 •  Call to dependent system failed|500 Internal Server error 

This error comes from Flipkart when the API is down, or some tech issue occurred at Flipkart’s end. In such cases, we have to contact Flipkart Tech Team or Flipkart API Team at: Seller Support API Mailbox seller-api-queries@flipkart.com