Clear old stock on OLX: prices and batches
If your shop holds a large stock of older items, OLX is a good place to move them. The risk is doing it all at once. Here is a steady way to do it.
Where does this advice come from?
Tidelist began as a private tool for one Bulgarian online shop that wanted to clear a backlog of older clothing on OLX without typing every advert. The habits below are the ones that tool grew around: look before you send, publish in small hand-picked batches, stop when OLX asks for money, and never let a program buy anything. The shop’s name and figures are left out on purpose. Treat the advice as a method, not as a promise of results: how fast stock sells depends on your products, your prices and OLX.
How do I list a big backlog on OLX safely?
Work in stages. Run a dry-run first so you see every advert before it exists. Publish three or four adverts and check them on OLX. Then publish small batches of ten to thirty, looking at the results between batches. Stop when OLX shows a limit or asks for a payment, and decide what to do yourself.
Stage 0: Which products go first?
Do not send everything. Hand-pick. Start with products that are complete: good photos, a mapped category and values for the fields OLX requires. Sort out the rest later. Tidelist never publishes by itself: you select products on the Listings screen, and nothing goes out until you type PUBLISH. If you want an overview first, Export CSV gives you all listings in a file.
If some of the backlog is already on OLX from earlier, use Find adverts already on OLX first. Tidelist links the adverts that carry your product IDs, so nothing is published twice.
Stage 1: dry-run
In dry-run, every advert is built and written to the log, and nothing is sent. Open the previews of a few products from different categories. Fix what the preview complains about: a missing category, a required field without a value, a description that is too short. Dry-run is on when you install the plugin, and you switch it off yourself.
Stage 2: three or four adverts
Switch dry-run off and publish a few. Open them on OLX as a buyer would. Check the title, the photos, the price and the category. Take one down and put it back to see that nothing breaks. If you want a safe place to practise, use a separate OLX account: OLX has no test environment.
Stage 3: small batches
Run batches of ten to thirty. A batch goes out one advert at a time with a pause between them, which keeps you far below OLX’s request limit of 4,500 per IP address in five minutes. Look at the log after each batch and read the failures before you start the next. Do not run several batches at the same time. You can cancel a running batch; adverts already sent stay on OLX.
How should I price clearance items?
Pricing by hand does not scale, and it is easy to get inconsistent. Tidelist has an optional clearance rule for OLX adverts in clothing categories, in euro:
- A price of 20 € or more goes down to the nearest whole price ending in 9. For example 76,18 € becomes 69 €, and 117,09 € becomes 109 €.
- A price under 20 € goes down to the nearest price ending in ,90. For example 17,87 € becomes 16,90 €.
- Accessory categories such as hair accessories, scarves and hats keep their price.
The rule changes the OLX price only. Your WooCommerce price stays as it is. It is off by default and applies only when your OLX country uses euro. Whether prices that end in 9 sell better is for your own numbers to say; the rule’s value is that it is consistent and fast.
Pro adds general price rules: a markup in percent and rounding, also per category. See pricing.
How do I watch my OLX limits?
Business accounts on OLX have a number of free adverts per category and period, and packages for more. The numbers differ by country and OLX can change them, so read your own account. If OLX asks for a payment, Tidelist stops the batch, because it never pays on your behalf. Check your limits before you start and plan the order of categories accordingly. An advert in the status “waiting for payment” or “limited” is not live, whatever the Listings screen of your shop says.
What happens afterwards?
Sold-out items should disappear by themselves. Tidelist deactivates an advert when stock runs out, never deletes it, and puts it back only when you ask (or automatically in Pro). Read Keep stock in sync with OLX for the rules, and Sync, takedown and re-listing for the details. Safety, dry-run and pause lists everything the plugin refuses to do.
Tidelist is not affiliated with OLX Group.
Frequently asked questions
How many adverts should I publish at once?
Start with three or four, then ten, then larger batches. Tidelist allows at most 30 per batch, one after another, so you can stop and look at what OLX did.
Does the clearance price rule change my WooCommerce prices?
No. The rule changes only the price sent to OLX. Your WooCommerce price stays as it is, and the rule is off by default.
What happens if OLX asks for a payment during a batch?
Tidelist stops the batch. It never buys a package or pays OLX on your behalf. You decide in your OLX account what to buy, if anything.
Can I put old stock on OLX without a plugin?
Yes, by typing each advert by hand. That works for a few items. For a large backlog the time and the risk of mistakes grow quickly, which is what a batch tool is for.
Related pages
- Preview and publish adverts
Check the exact data that would be sent, choose photos, select products and publish a batch of up to 30 adverts by typing PUBLISH. Cancel a running batch.
- Safety, dry-run and pause
How Tidelist protects your OLX account: dry-run on by default, a pause switch, typed confirmation, a request allow-list and encrypted credentials.
- Keep stock in sync with OLX
Why adverts for sold-out items hurt, which shop events should take an advert down, how often to check, and when to list an item again. A practical set of rules.
- Pricing