This article is only applicable only if your store has not been migrated to use SKU feature in Rakuten.
If your store has been migrated to use SKU feature in Rakuten, refer to this article instead    


In order to publish an item on Rakuten you simply have to go to your Shopify product page, click on "More actions" then "Rakuten - Edit Product"



A modal will appear allowing you to edit your Rakuten item information and publish your product.


Availability

If your product is not available to the Rakuten sales channel you will see the following banner:



Press "Make available" to enable the product. You will not be able to publish an item if it is unavailable to the sales channel.


Product Information


This section allows you to enter your title, description and catchcopy that will be displayed on your Rakuten item page.  If you need help translating your copy you can click on "Google translate".  The translation service will translate any text input you have entered.  If none is available, the Shopify fields (title/description) will be used.




Genre

A genre is the naming of product categories available in Rakuten.  Each product must have a genre associated with it in order to be published.



Variant Options

Due to the different handling of variants on respective marketplaces (Shopify and Rakuten), it is only possible to publish one Shopify variant per Rakuten Item.


In order to handle multiple variants, the Rakuten sales channel requires you to translate each option name.  The appropriate translated name will appear on the product title in Rakuten. (e.g. Grey Shirt - Blue - Small).  To help you with translating, you can press the "Google translate" button.


The following image shows a Shopify product with two variant options of Size (small, medium, and large) and Color (Blue, Green).


Product Photos

This section allows you to upload custom photos that will be used on your Rakuten Ichiba product page.


Things to note:

  • The order of images is determined by the placement of images from left to right.  To re-arrange images just drag and drop images to their preferred order.
  • To upload your Shopify photos, click on the "My photos meet these requirements." checkbox
  • Images uploaded here are applied across all variants
  • To have a separate image per variant, set the image on the Shopify Product page.


Rakuten Ichiba have set image requirements for their listings.  Please follow their guidelines when uploading images.



Default Prices

To simplify pricing across all of the variants you can set values in the "Default prices" section.  Setting the price, tax, and shipping fields means that these values will get applied across all variants unless specified in the "Variant specific" section.

As prices are entered, help text will show up converting your ¥ amount to your store currency.



Variant Specifics

If your Shopify product has variants then all possible options are shown in this section.  This section will allow you to specify individual price, tax, or shipping costs that are only applicable to that variant and whether or not the variant should be published on Rakuten.


The Status field allows you to see the state of the item on Rakuten.



Publishing

Once complete push "Publish".  Your listings are now in Publishing status and in a few moment your items will be for sale on Rakuten Ichiba.


Congrats!! You're now selling on Rakuten


To view your item on Rakuten Ichiba bring up the "Rakuten - Edit Product" modal and scroll to the bottom.  Each published variant will have a link to the Rakuten item page.