Listing drafts

Create, fix, and publish draft listings before they go live on a channel.

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Use Listings → Drafts to create, fix, and prepare listings before they go live. Every listing starts as a draft, and drafts stay separate from the live Listings list so the two workspaces do not duplicate the same primary action.

eBay offer intent and verified settings

The eBay draft editor labels offer controls as planned settings and shows a separate Listing offer settings panel. New drafts have no live eBay state. Revision drafts show the provider-confirmed settings alongside the draft's planned enable/disable choice, minimum offer (auto-decline) and auto-accept. Saving a draft does not apply these settings to eBay.

Current settings use Offers on, Offers off or Not checked, separately from the draft's planned choice. Not checked means ChannelWeave has no current confirmed setting, not that the listing failed or offers are off. The detail panel retains check progress, diagnostic messages and any differences from the last request. Revision and publication checks still require confirmed settings; quieter wording does not bypass these safeguards.

ChannelWeave currently publishes offer terms only on fixed-price listings without variations. eBay multi-variation listings cannot enable Best Offer. Existing auctions that accept offers can be displayed, but must be revised on eBay rather than having their offer terms silently changed by ChannelWeave.

Creating a revision requires recent seller-confirmed settings for both imported and internally created listings. Missing or stale verification queues a refresh and blocks creation with an explanation. The revision retains a separate baseline of those live terms. Publishing checks that this baseline still matches recently verified settings; if it does not, refresh and create a new revision. An older draft without a baseline cannot bypass this check.

Publishing sends explicit enable/disable intent. Clearing automatic thresholds uses eBay's explicit field-deletion contract. For fixed-price revisions, the price/content revision runs first and a second offer-only revision reapplies the terms, because changing a price can remove thresholds on eBay. Failure of the second step is a partial provider change requiring reconciliation, not a successful complete update; do not blindly retry.

An acknowledged publish queues verification and does not manufacture a live confirmation from the draft or its publish snapshot. Pending/failed checks and verified settings that differ from the last request remain visible. Automatic checks never apply corrective offer or price changes to eBay.

Listing creation paths

You can create draft listings by:

  • Starting from Listings → Drafts → Create draft
  • Starting from stock
  • Cloning an existing listing
  • Importing from a connected channel

For Amazon, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce and Website, Create draft starts with the same stock-first flow:

  1. Choose a connection, for example Choose eBay.
  2. On Create eBay draft, link a stock item. Change connection returns to the connection chooser without creating a draft.
  3. Choose Create draft to save a stock-linked draft and open its editor. This does not publish the listing.

The chooser and stock-selection page share the breadcrumb Listings → Drafts → Create draft. Once the draft exists, its editor shows Listings → Drafts → Draft listing. The small connection badge appears first in At a glance, alongside the draft status, matching Listing and Order detail pages. Creation steps are not ancestors of an existing draft.

The AI assistant icon beside Create draft opens page-specific help. On mobile, it appears beside the compact page title, as on the stock-selection pages.

Use View eBay drafts (or the corresponding connection link) to open the filtered Drafts workspace. The creation page does not embed a Recent drafts list.

Back to drafts and Save and close use the same return destination. Starting from the Drafts workspace preserves its search, connection, status, sort, page and page size through connection selection and draft creation. Direct editor links fall back to Drafts; the editor does not infer a destination from the browser referrer or its breadcrumb. Saving is still required to keep editor changes, and existing unsaved-change prompts remain in place.

Draft rows cannot be saved or re-saved without a linked stock item. From stock item detail, Create drafts opens the listing-template chooser directly. If the Stock item has unsaved changes, ChannelWeave asks you to Save and continue before opening the chooser. This ensures the drafts use the saved form values. The stock item's saved Default listing description preloads the draft description unless a template or existing draft value overrides it. Channel targets start unticked so that drafts are created only for the Channels you explicitly select. Templates are optional: continue without a template for a basic stock-linked draft, or choose one saved template when reusable pricing, copy, and policy rules should be applied.

Drafts workflow

Use Listings → Drafts to:

  • Find and filter draft listings
  • Use the Item summary column for quicker row recognition (inline thumbnail when an image exists, a neutral placeholder when it does not, title plus compact description preview, and status folded into Item on narrower layouts). Desktop rows and mobile cards retain the same thumbnail position so mixed rows stay aligned
  • Keep filter/search/sort preferences between visits (unless URL query parameters are explicitly set)
  • Open a draft and use Back to drafts to return to the same search, Channel, status, sort, page and page-size state
  • Fix missing listing details
  • Link existing stock, or create and link new stock
  • Open linked stock items and replace stock links via Change stock item
  • Use Draft with AI and Add reference facts from the title row to draft restrained description copy from the current stock/listing facts, without routing the request through general AI assistant onboarding answers. AI assistant preserves explicit limitation, edition-size, numbering, serial, signature, certificate, included-item, dimension, material, compatibility, and condition-neutral specification facts when they are present.
  • Use Add reference facts to fetch a trusted public product page. The panel shows Amazon, Discogs, and Other source shortcuts. Amazon and Discogs open a search tab from the current draft title; copy the chosen product URL, return to ChannelWeave, paste it manually or with the paste helper, then choose Fetch facts. The selected source is highlighted when ChannelWeave recognises the pasted URL or identifier. ChannelWeave proposes reviewable product facts from the public page and filters out scripts, navigation, reviews and other unrelated page content. Tick only the facts AI assistant may use, then choose Draft with AI or clear the facts before drafting. If the listing title is still empty and the reference page includes a product-name fact, ChannelWeave offers a separate Use as listing title action so the title is applied only after user approval. ChannelWeave reads up to 2 MB of remote HTML and keeps up to 1.25 MB of stripped page content.
  • Use supported Reference lookups to turn approved catalogue pages into reviewed draft facts and, where available, channel-specific suggestions.
  • Archive selected Amazon, eBay, Shopify and Website drafts, plus local WooCommerce drafts from the list action row or detail header
  • Delete unpublished Amazon, eBay, Shopify and Website drafts, plus local WooCommerce drafts you no longer need
  • Prepare listings for publish

Delete is permanent. Published or publishing drafts are retained and should be moved out of active workflows with Archive instead. Amazon drafts that are publishing, submitted, or published are also protected because they may represent a marketplace submission that needs reconciliation before follow-up. WooCommerce drafts can be edited, archived or deleted only while they remain local. Once Create WooCommerce draft succeeds, the retained ChannelWeave draft is immutable submission history.

Reference lookups

Reference lookups help turn readable product pages and supported catalogue APIs into reviewed draft data. They are not channel account setup, stock imports, or syncs. The standard Add reference facts fetch tries to read any public product page that ChannelWeave can access, then proposes reviewable facts from structured Product data, metadata, and page text. In addition to these standard page-reading lookups, ChannelWeave also supports specialised lookups using provider APIs where an API gives a safer, clearer catalogue source. The user always approves what should be used. Source shortcuts in the panel can open Amazon or Discogs search results from the draft title, while Other supports any readable public product page.

Supported lookup sources

Amazon

Amazon catalogue lookup requires an Amazon connection. Paste an Amazon product URL, ASIN, UPC, or EAN into Add reference facts. ChannelWeave uses the customer’s authorised Amazon connection to retrieve catalogue facts for review, including title, brand, model or part number, product type, category, identifiers, dimensions, descriptions, and bullet points when Amazon returns them.

Those facts can help prepare drafts for Amazon, eBay, Shopify or Website. On eBay listing drafts, ChannelWeave can also suggest reviewed item specifics such as brand, model, MPN, type, UPC, EAN, ISBN, or ASIN.

Amazon catalogue lookup does not create Amazon listings, sync Amazon inventory, use a shared ChannelWeave Amazon account, import pricing, import sales rank, or import image data.

Discogs

Discogs is a catalogue reference lookup for recorded-music listing drafts. Paste a Discogs release URL into Add reference facts. ChannelWeave uses application-authenticated or public Discogs release data to load catalogue facts for review. On eBay listing drafts, ChannelWeave can also suggest item specifics such as artist, release title, format, label, release year, genre, style, edition, country/region, and catalogue number.

This lookup enriches one reviewed draft or Stock item. It does not connect a Discogs seller account. The Discogs tools page can also prepare an operator-reviewed Quicklister CSV from eligible Stock. That download is not a ChannelWeave listing draft, is not uploaded by ChannelWeave, and does not mark a listing as published. The operator must review the matched release, condition and price in Discogs.

The user chooses what to apply from a reference lookup. ChannelWeave does not retrieve or synchronise a Discogs Collection through the API, or import Marketplace listings, pricing, sales history, orders, wantlists, seller identity, seller tokens or hosted image data. A manually downloaded Collection CSV can be prepared and imported as Stock through Data Exchange.

This application uses Discogs’ API but is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Discogs. ‘Discogs’ is a trademark of Zink Media, LLC. When Discogs catalogue results are loaded, Add reference facts places a linked Data provided by Discogs notice directly beneath the returned facts and suggested item specifics.

Draft editors

Draft editors (Amazon, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce and Website) include:

  • A shared status badge row under the page header
  • A Preflight checklist panel at the top of the right rail
  • A sticky action bar with Save and close as the primary save action, Save in the split-button dropdown, and channel validation/publish actions in the page header where applicable
  • A Last saved timestamp in the top-right page watermark
  • Inline field highlighting plus a top Needs attention summary when publish checks fail
  • Currency selection through the shared supported-currency dropdown where the channel allows it

Website drafts include Item specifics (optional) in the same way eBay draft specifics do: add name/value pairs such as Artist = {{artist}} or Brand = {{brand}} to enrich the published Website listing feed. These item specifics complement stock item Reference facts. Stock Reference facts can seed draft specifics automatically, while draft item specifics let you add or override channel-facing attributes before publish.

Draft quantities use the linked stock item's sales/listing unit. ChannelWeave converts the draft quantity back to base inventory units for availability, reservations, allocations, and order imports. When a draft quantity is higher than linked available stock in sales/listing units, the editor highlights the quantity field and shows a warning. Website and Shopify publishing remain allowed, but resulting orders stay unallocated until stock is received. eBay follows its oversell policy. Amazon Merchant fulfilled drafts must have ChannelWeave available stock greater than or equal to the draft quantity before preflight can pass; FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) stock needs separate Amazon fulfilment checks.

Draft title guidance is channel-aware:

  • eBay listing titles are capped at 80 characters before save or publish.
  • Amazon draft titles save up to 255 characters, but editors guide users to aim for 75 characters or fewer unless Amazon product-type requirements say otherwise.
  • Shopify, WooCommerce and Website draft titles save up to 255 characters, with a 50–60 character recommendation for search preview readability.

Stock item names stay flexible because they describe the product internally and can feed multiple channels with different listing-title rules.

Publishing

Before publishing, confirm:

  • Required details are complete
  • Pricing is correct
  • Shipping setup is ready

Draft status tracks where each draft is in its publishing workflow:

  • Draft
  • Needs info
  • Ready
  • Publishing
  • Submitted
  • Published
  • Archived

The Status filter defaults to In progress, a grouped view containing every status except Published and Archived. Choose a specific status or Status: All when you need a narrower or complete view.

Shopify's publish confirmation requires an explicit Shopify inventory location from the connected shop. No first-location default is applied. Reopening the confirmation refreshes the choices and clears the previous selection. The server rechecks the selection before creating the product; the published listing retains it for later stock updates. This is separate from the Stock item's local storage location. See Shopify.

WooCommerce simple products use a two-step remote flow. Create WooCommerce draft creates the product remotely with status Draft and keeps the ChannelWeave draft status at Submitted. A separate, confirmed Publish to store action updates that same remote product to Published. Images, description and a positive numeric WooCommerce category ID are optional; variable-product creation is not included.

Amazon publishing is submitted from the Amazon editor through the Amazon SP-API (Selling Partner API) and stays in Submitted while ChannelWeave waits for Amazon listing-state reconciliation. ChannelWeave checks submitted drafts automatically, and Reconcile Amazon lets you run the same check from the draft editor. The local listing moves to Live only when Amazon reports a buyable listing state, or to Rejected with the returned issues when Amazon blocks it. Publish retries for Amazon, eBay, WooCommerce and Website recover stale interrupted publishing states before attempting another publish. For Shopify, reload the draft editor or use Recover publishing before retrying; the publish request itself does not recover stale state. If a marketplace accepted a publish but local completion was interrupted, the Listing drafts table shows Needs attention with the captured error and any known remote identity. A provider request with an unknown outcome also needs reconciliation, and another submit remains blocked until that attention state is cleared.