Objective

Sellers should be encouraged to provide high quality product content so that their products are more likely to sell through the Shop. In order to achieve this, and to achieve a fast “going live” procedure for products, it is important that products have high quality content so that they can be approved immediately.

• This way, multiple rounds of rejecting and correcting product listings can be avoided.

Seller Center provides three ways to reduce quality control rejections:

• Price
• Image
• Other

Image Validation

Setup

#	Description	Image
1	Go to Administration > Category Setup
2	Switch to tab “Category Configuration”
3	This overview shows all categories where restrictions are configured. Green tick (√) means that a restriction has been configured. When a restriction has been configured, the user can click on the tick and view the corresponding values. Red cross (x) means that no restriction has been configured yet.
4	Click on “Edit” to update a category restriction
5	Within an accordion, three sections can be edited: “Price” “Image” “Others”
6	Open the section for “Image”
7	The “Image” section can be configured according to three values for each category. “Max Image Background Percentage”: The max percentage of an image that the background can be. “Allowed Background Colors”: Option to define a list with colors that can be used as image background color. Possible color names are listed here. “Blurriness Factor”: determines how fuzzy or faint a product image can be or how sharp an object is displayed. Please see below for detailed information. The smaller the allowed blurriness score, the sharper the image. Max value: 1. A good blurriness score would be below 0.65 –  0.7 Checkbox “Inherit from parent”: The value from the higher level category is used. When the checkbox is selected, the input field is disabled. Empty input means no restriction.
8	Click “Submit” to save the changes.

Image Analysis

Seller Center uses an internal solution for image analysis. After an image has been uploaded in the product form, the image validation will be applied while the product is being saved. If an image does not follow the defined boundaries, an error will be displayed detailing what needs to be improved.

External Image Analysis

Furthermore, it is possible for Ventures to use their own image validation. After uploading an image, an external API can be called that will provide the corresponding results. Based on those results, the validation will be applied.

Background Size Detection

This field refers to how large the actual image object (product) should be compared to its background. This is to prevent the main image from being too small in relation to the background it is placed on.

Example: If the product image should take up at least 60% of the image, the max. background needs to be set to 40%.

Image	Result
	Not approved, image is too small
	Approved (displayed object is larger)

Background Color Detection

For background color detection, Seller Center picks a small square out of all four corners of an image’s background and calculates the average color value within those squares.

Once the average color is determined, this detected color is validated against the provided list for the specific category. If both values match, the image is saved.

Possible colors must be within the listed options here.

Blurriness Detection

Blurriness determines the sharpness of an object, i.e. how clearly edges are recognized. Example images and their results

Image	Quality Control Result
	Approved
	Approved
	Not approved  (image is blurry)
	Not approved  (image is blurry)
	Not approved (image is blurry)

Consequences for Seller during Image Validation

During a product’s creation or editing and before it is saved, the uploaded images are validated against the configured thresholds. If an image is outside of the defined range, the product is not saved and an error message is displayed.

Seller Center will immediately reject the uploaded file. During CSV/API import, an error message is also generated in the reports.

Rollout of Image Validation

It is recommended to first test the feature on the staging environment of the Seller Center installation. This is to define the boundaries and also to check whether or not the images is approved as expected.

Seller Center provides a feature switch to control whether images are immediately rejected or saved.  If the switch is set to “save non-compliant images,” a message is shown that this image might not follow the defined guidelines.

Price Configuration

Price configuration/regulation is important for ensuring that Sellers cannot add unrealistic prices or discounts for their products (e.g., if the [normal] price for the product is set to $100 and the sale price is set to $10. This would imply a discount of 90%, but the product is usually sold for $20).

Therefore, it is important to set restrictions for certain categories.

Setup

#	Description	Image
1	Go to Administration > Category Setup
2	Switch to tab “Category Configuration”
3	This overview shows all categories where restrictions are configured. Green tick (√) means that a restriction has been configured When a restriction has been configured, the user can click on the tick and see the corresponding values displayed. Red cross (x) means that no restriction has been configured yet.
4	Click on “Edit” to update a category restriction.
5	Within an accordion, three sections can be edited: “Price” “Image” “Other” (in development)
6	The price can be configured through three parameters for each category “Price Threshold Max”: Maximum possible price for all products within the category “Price Threshold Min”: Minimum possible price for all products within the category “Discount %”: Calculates the maximum possible difference between (unit) price and sale price of a product within the category Example: Discount: 30% , Price: $100; therefore, the sale price can’t be lower than $70. Otherwise, an error message is displayed to the Seller Checkbox “Inherit from parent”: The value from the higher level category is used. When the checkbox is selected, the input field is disabled. Empty input means no restriction
7	After editing the required fields, click “Submit” to save the changes.

Consequences for Seller

During product creation or update, the products are additionally validated against the configured values. In case the defined thresholds are not obeyed, error messages are displayed in the UI and after CSV/API upload.

Seller will be notified if:

• Price is higher than the defined maximum value.
• Price/sale price is lower than the defined minimum value.
• Sale price is lower than defined max. threshold to price value or discount is set higher than possible.

Other Configuration

Sometimes  further validation/restriction needs to be added on attributes so that Sellers can fill attributes properly. Often it is also required to distinguish between categories on the filled value. This means that in different categories, different input ranges are possible.

Objective

In the following section, we show how the “Other Configuration” can be set up using the example of the “dimension” attributes. Sellers usually fill out values for length, width, height and/or weight. However, even if those values are set up, they still might be wrong or not fitting for the product since the dimensions for these types of products are usually different. Some Ventures already have an attribute where the dimensional factor is calculated.

Using this feature, Seller Center auto-calculates a factor for the dimensions and automatically adds the calculation result to a specific attribute.

Setup Attribute Calculation

#	Description	Image
1	Go to Administration > Attribute Set Editor
2	Search for the attribute that should be used.
3	Click on the attribute name.
4	In the attribute settings, there is a field for “Formula.” In this field, a formula for a value calculation can be added. This means that the values from other attributes are used to calculate this particular attribute. The attribute names can be added with the help of an auto complete functionality. The selection box displays whether this field uses a text-field or a number-field. In order to perform calculations, it is recommended to use number-fields. This functionality can be used, for example, to automatically calculate the volumetric dimension of an attribute based on the Seller’s input for length, width, height, and weight. Input: The attribute “Name” variable is used for the setup. All mathematical operations are possible (+, -, *, /)
5	Save the changes.
6	Go to Administration > Category Setup > Category Configuration to set up the restrictions on category-level.
7	Click “Edit” for the category where restrictions should be set up. Alternatively, general restrictions can be set up on root-category. The attribute name is listed for each of the configured attributes. Settings are inheritable. That means that settings from top-level categories are applied also to leaf/child categories. Range can be entered with min/max value for this attribute. Checkbox “Inherit from parent” means that the value from the higher level category is used. When the checkbox is selected, the input field is disabled. Empty input means that there is no restriction.
8	Click “Submit” to save the changes.

Impact for the Seller

Seller will be informed during product creation or editing, and the configured attribute will automatically be filled with the result of the calculation.
During the editing of the attributes used in the formula, the disabled attributes (dimensions) are automatically calculated.
After all attributes are edited by the Seller and the configured limit is exceeded, an error message is displayed for the affected attribute.
Saving the product will not be possible. Furthermore, during CSV/API upload of products, an error will also be triggered if the provided values exceed the configured limit.