Keep stock in sync with OLX

Buyers write, you apologise, and OLX shows a shop that cannot be trusted. Keeping stock in sync is the part of selling on a marketplace that is easiest to forget and cheapest to automate. These are the rules we think work, and how Tidelist applies them.

When should an advert come down?

The reasons are simple, but they are easy to miss one by one. Stock hits zero after an order. A product is switched to draft while you fix a photo. A variation is removed when a supplier stops making a size. In each case the item is no longer for sale, and its advert should not stay online.

Why deactivate and not delete?

OLX lets an advert be activated again after it has been deactivated, and it stays in your account. A deleted advert is gone, and a new one would have to be written. There is a second reason: OLX does not like duplicates: as we read its website terms, one item should be the subject of one advert only. Putting the same item up again as a new advert can count as a duplicate. Reactivating the same advert avoids that question. Tidelist never deletes an advert.

Which rules work?

• React to stock changes, not only to a timer. When an order reduces stock to zero, the takedown should start within minutes. Tidelist watches product changes for exactly this.
• Add a safety sweep. An hourly check catches changes that bypassed the normal events, such as an import or an edit made directly in the database.
• Check what OLX says. Every few hours read the status of your adverts: live, being checked, waiting for payment, limited, inactive or removed. An advert that OLX has limited is not selling, whatever your shop says. Tidelist reads statuses every six hours, or on demand with Check the status of all adverts.
• Never delete. Deactivate, and keep the option to bring it back.
• Make the shop the source of truth. Sync follows the stock WooCommerce knows. Enter offline sales and returns there.

What counts as “out of stock”?

Tidelist uses WooCommerce’s own signals. An advert comes down when the stock status is “out of stock”, or when you manage stock for the product and the quantity is zero or below. If you do not manage stock, the status you set by hand is what counts. See WooCommerce’s guide to managing products and inventory for how stock settings work.

When should an item go back online?

When stock returns, the advert can be activated again. You choose whether that happens by itself or with a click. Automatic re-listing saves time, but it should only ever reactivate an advert you approved once, and never publish a new one. In the free plugin, List again is one click on the Listings screen. In Pro it is automatic.

What about price and photo changes?

Stock is not the only thing that changes. When a price or a photo changes in the shop, the advert should follow, and only when something the advert contains has really changed, so that you do not spend requests for nothing. OLX limits requests (4,500 per IP address in five minutes), and each one counts. In the free plugin you press Update now. In Pro, updates are automatic.

How do I check that sync works?

Test it before you trust it. Take a product with a live advert that you do not mind losing for a while, set its stock to zero in WooCommerce, and watch. Within about an hour its advert should show as inactive on OLX, and Tidelist log should contain the reason. Then restore the stock and press List again. If you are still in dry-run, the log shows the takedown that would have been sent instead, which is a safe way to see the rule work before it touches a real advert.

Do this once per shop, and again after you change anything about how your shop updates stock, such as a new import or a warehouse plugin. Imports that write stock directly into the database are exactly what the hourly sweep exists for.

How does Tidelist do it?

Tidelist takes an advert down when stock runs out, when the product is unpublished, trashed or deleted, and when a variation or its parent disappears. It runs the check when stock changes and in an hourly sweep, and reads statuses from OLX every six hours. Takedown deactivates the advert and writes the reason to the log. The details are in Sync, takedown and re-listing.

Automatic takedown is part of the free plugin. Automatic updates and automatic re-listing are in Pro; see pricing. Tidelist is not affiliated with OLX Group.