OLX Connector for OpenCart — OLX adverts from products, prices and stock

OLX Connector for OpenCart 4.x, 3.x and 2.3 publishes the products of your shop as adverts on OLX through the official Partner API: OLX.ua, and OLX in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal and Kazakhstan. You map shop categories to OLX categories, and the advert is built from the product name, description, images, price and stock.

What you need from OLX. Every shop registers its own application in the OLX developer portal (developer.olx.ua for Ukraine, developer.olx.pl for Poland) and waits until OLX approves it: only then does OLX give the Client ID and Client Secret. One application works for one country; a second country needs another application with an OLX account of that country.

What the buyer sees

A buyer on OLX sees an ordinary advert of your account: the product title and description, images from the shop, the price by your rules (tax, exchange rate, markup, rounding), and the city and contacts you entered in the module. In Pro, when the product runs out the advert becomes inactive, so nobody orders what you do not have.

What the admin gets

Extensions → Modules → OLX Connector: the Connection, Adverts, Categories, Prices and stock, Products, Orders, Licence and Log tabs. On the Connection tab you choose the OLX country, enter the Client ID and Client Secret, copy the Callback URL shown there into your OLX application and press “Connect the OLX account”: OLX asks you to log in and allow access. The secret is stored encrypted and is never put back into the form.

The Adverts tab holds what goes into every advert: private person or business, name and phone, the city (you enter the coordinates of the shop and “Find the city” fills in the OLX city and district), the language of the texts and the number of images. On the Categories tab “Suggest” finds an OLX category by product name and “Browse the tree” shows all categories; for categories with required attributes you set where each value comes from: a fixed value or a product attribute.

The product form gets an OLX tab: “Sell this product on OLX”, plus a title and a category of its own for this product. “Check” shows the advert as it will be sent: title, category, price, stock, number of images, and what exactly is in the way when it is not ready. “Publish on OLX” creates the advert; after that the same tab has Update, Deactivate, Activate, Extend and Delete, the advert number with a link, its state and expiry date. One product is one advert: product options are not published as separate adverts, and the stock is the quantity of the product.

The advert price is calculated from the shop price (the special price when one is running): plus tax, the exchange rate to the advert currency, a markup in percent and as a fixed amount, and rounding. The stock reserve keeps a set number of units for the shop. In Pro the module watches the products that have an advert: when the price, text or stock changes, the scheduled job sends the change to OLX; when the stock reaches the reserve the advert is deactivated, and activated again when the stock is back. Pro also reads moderation and expiry from OLX, publishes a whole shop category with one button and applies the title and description templates.

OLX opens orders through its API in Poland only. For a Polish account Pro turns an OLX order into an OpenCart order, lowers the stock, keeps the status in step with OLX and adds a panel to the order page with Accept, Shipping label (PDF) and cancelling. OLX does not pass the delivery address or the e-mail of the buyer to the seller: the shop order has the invoice details when the buyer gave them, and the delivery address is on the OLX label. For Ukraine and the other countries the Orders tab does nothing yet.

How it works, step by step

1. Install the archive for your OpenCart version and switch the module on.
2. In the OLX developer portal of your country add an application and enter the Callback URL from the Connection tab. Wait for the approval of OLX.
3. Enter the Client ID and Client Secret, press “Connect the OLX account” and allow access.
4. On the Adverts tab enter the contacts and the city, on the Categories tab map categories and attributes, on the Prices and stock tab set the price rules.
5. On the OLX tab of a product press “Check”, then “Publish on OLX”.
6. In Pro add the scheduled job: from then on price and stock are updated by themselves and an out-of-stock product is taken off OLX.

Under the hood

• OLX Partner API 2.0 with OAuth login; the Client Secret and the tokens are stored encrypted.
• One product is one advert; options are not published separately.
• OLX takes titles of 16 to 150 characters and descriptions of 80 to 9000 characters without e-mail or web addresses: the module strips HTML, e-mail addresses and links, and completes a title that is too short with the brand and model. Descriptions that are too short have to be extended in the product.
• When the free advert limit of a category is used up, OLX gives the advert the “limited” state: the package is bought in the OLX account, the module does not buy paid packages.
• OLX allows 4500 requests per 5 minutes from one IP address and blocks for 30 minutes when the limit is exceeded: the module sends changes from a queue, up to 100 products per run, with pauses.
• OLX keeps a connection alive for a month after its last use; with Pro the module renews it in the background.
• After a lost answer from OLX the advert is not duplicated: the module finds the one that already exists.
• OpenCart events, no core edits; updating the module keeps the connection, the category map and the links to adverts.
• Interface in English, Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.

How to install

1. Extensions → Installer: upload the archive for your version without renaming it (OpenCart 4: cc_olx.ocmod.zip, 3.x: cc_olx-oc3.ocmod.zip, 2.3: cc_olx-oc23.ocmod.zip).
2. For 3.x and 2.3: Extensions → Modifications → Refresh.
3. Extensions → Modules → OLX Connector: install and edit.
4. Choose the country, enter the Client ID and Client Secret and connect the OLX account.
5. For Pro: paste the key or start the trial on the Licence tab.