Export custom data feeds for shopping sites like froogle automatically?

[apemusic]

Hi Zenners,

I am signed up on many shopping comparison sites (like froogle.com) but each has its own different specifications for the data feed I provide.

At the moment every time few weeks I am using the froogle export and rearranging the columns manually for each site, this is getting ridiculous. Most of the sites I am signed up for just grab the datafile from my site whenever I update it, the trouble is I can only update it manually
Surely there is an easier way to do this?

I am signed up to several sites at the moment, many require like this for example, usually CSV or TXT, tab or comma delimited, the requirements vary per site.

upc product_code product_url product_name product_description image_url category price

Can I set up zen cart to export these feeds and update them automatically whenever I update my site?

Also I have noticed with the froogle export from easypopulate the stock comes as Y for everything, even out of stock products

The reason this is important is many of these shopping sites charge per click so I do not want to include out of stock items in their feeds

Also some are in USD and AUD

Many of the shopping sites have provided me with a script that works in OSCommerce to automatically export the goods, but it does not work in Zen-Cart, is there an easy way to convert these scripts or are they useless? I would rather stick with Zen because the support here is great, but all of the major shopping sites seem to make export script PHP files they give me that are meant for OScommerce, can I use them?

Any help?? This would be greatly appreciated it is one of my priorities at the moment, our stock changes fast so changing every single export file manually is becoming impossible

cheers,
Dave

[apemusic]

Hi there,

anyone??

I really need a feed like the google one but arranged differently e.g. for shopping.com , surely there is a feed to export for that?

At the moment I have to cut and paste in excel for every single shopping site other than Froogle, any one know what to do?

[Woodymon]

I really need a feed like the google one but arranged differently e.g. for shopping.com , surely there is a feed to export for that?

At the moment I have to cut and paste in excel for every single shopping site other than Froogle, any one know what to do?

If you know a bit of XML you can hack at Andrew's RSS2 mod to get the results you desire. It supports GoogleBase namespace.

Or hack the GoogleFroogle mod for each feed service you require.
(note the mod is no longer actively developed).

As far as I'm aware there are currently no other feed add-ons available for Zen Cart.

Sounds like an opening for an enterprising programmer.

Woody

[apemusic]

Thanks Woody,

The sites I am talking about are Shopping.com or MyShopping.com.au

There are commerical feeds available for Shopping.com but I need one for Shopping.com AU and would prefer a free opensource one

Is there a Google Base export feed that works? Because the only one I have exports all products as Y for stock even if they are out of stock and even includes products which are disabled (status = 0) so is a big waste of money on CPC sites

Also is there a Google Base export that also exports to Google Adwords?

regards,
Dave

[Woodymon]

The sites I am talking about are Shopping.com or MyShopping.com.au. There are commerical feeds available for Shopping.com but I need one for Shopping.com AU and would prefer a free opensource one. Is there a Google Base export feed that works? Because the only one I have exports all products as Y for stock even if they are out of stock and even includes products which are disabled (status = 0) so is a big waste of money on CPC sites. Also is there a Google Base export that also exports to Google Adwords?

Dave,

As I stated the two mods, RSS2 and GoogleFroogle, are it. You can hack them to your hearts content.

Andrew, the developer of both mods, announced yesterday he is updating the RSS2 mod (the previous version is no longer available for download). And he also recently announced he has discontinued further development on the GoogleFroogle mod. See the respective mod threads for further info.

If you have SPECIFIC recommends and/or feature requests regards to the RSS mod please post to the RSS mod thread or PM Andrew.

Good luck,
Woody

[GFLKEN]

If you are still looking...I don't have a contribution, but a suggestion. If the xml / rss is a little than you want to get into, check out the export shipping contribution. It is simple, and it will not do what you want...but it is SIMPLE, so you can easily (if you are comforatable with basic programing logic) mod it to meet your needs.

I fumbled with it for a while, then decided I really just needed somethign to export to UPS Worldship...I trimed it up to about 75 lines, basically a query, a few loops to arrange the data, write it the correct directory & display my link.

Next I will alter it to create my bizrate / shopping.com etc feeds. It's pretty easy to create the text file. I wrote these on my other old site / system, so I am realtively familiar with the formats required.

...if you are still looking for a free solution, ping me in week or 2 & I'll send you what I come up. You'd need to customize it some, but it's not that hard when you aren't including a bunch of files / language options, etc.

Best of luck apemusic

[Woodymon]

Next I will alter it to create my bizrate / shopping.com etc feeds. It's pretty easy to create the text file. I wrote these on my other old site / system, so I am realtively familiar with the formats required.

Before you proceed too far consider using Andrew's GoogleFroogle mod or Numenix's updated version of the same mod (GoogleBaseFeeder) as the basis of a feed generator for other 0product search/shopping services.

Numenix did exactly this when he recently created Windows Live Product Search feeder.

It's not too difficult manipulating the mod for your needs. Just need to know proper feed schema for the specific shopping service you want to support (and keep up-to-date on changes to the schema, both required fields and optional fields).

You can do similar for creating standard sitemap files by using GoogleSitemapAdmin module as base code.

Good luck.

Woody

[GFLKEN]

Thanks Woodymon,

I'll check that out...I'm about ready to tackle that this week or early next