XML Real-Time Inventory FAQ
Where do I start?
1. Sign up for a free Shipwire account. You will need a Shipwire email and password, for authentication. Signing up for an account has no cost or obligation associated with it.
2. Walk through the Example XML Status Request and Response. A Shipwire email address and password will be in <EmailAddress> and <Password> tags. The type of server will be in a <Server> tag, and set to Test or Production. If you set this tag to Test, and set a valid Shipwire email address and password, then the example response will always be returned.
If the <Warehouse> tag is left empty (<Warehouse/>), the sum total of inventory in all Shipwire warehouses will be displayed. Alternately, you can designate specific warehouses, to check inventory on a warehouse by warehouse basis. The tag currently has these option values:
- CHI: Shipwire Chicago
- LAX: Shipwire Los Angeles
- PHL: Shipwire Philadelphia
- VAN: Shipwire Vancouver
- TOR: Shipwire Toronto
- UK: Shipwire UK
- HKG: Shipwire Hong Kong
- AUS: Shipwire Australia
The <ProductCode> tag currently has two options:
- Leave it empty for all inventory to be displayed
- Enter a SKU# to get inventory of just that SKU. If the SKU does not exist in the Shipwire account, then the response will include a <TotalProducts> tag set to “0”, and no <Product> tag will be returned.
3. Use Shipwire Priority Support if you have any questions or problems. You can also request our MSN Messenger ID.
4. Use the XML Test Harness to submit a test order directly to us. Note that it is submitting orders to:
- https://api.shipwire.com/exec/InventoryServices.php
- https://api.shipwire.com/exec/InventoryServices.php?InventoryUpdateXML=%3CInventoryUpdate%3E%0A+++%3CEmailAddress%3Eyouremail.com…
5. If you only want to see the XML being received by Shipwire, use the Echo Only form. This is useful if your script appears to be producing perfect XML, but you are not getting any response from Shipwire. The most likely culprits are that you’re not posting to the InventoryUpdateXML variable, or you’re not posting with proper URL encoded syntax. Note that it is submitting requests to:
- https://api.shipwire.com/exec/InventoryServices.test.php
Will there be future upgrades? Will they be backward compatible?
As we continually add new features, we will do our best to add new attributes and tags to support additional information. Since we will not subtract from, or rearrange the existing attributes/parameters, your existing XML parsing software shouldn’t be affected by the new information.