Customized Product Feeds for my Client?

Hi all,

Longtime lurker, first time poster...

I'm a web designer, not a web developer. I don't know mySQL, but I have a lot of previous experience building MS Access databases. My PHP skills are high enough to modify any PHP-based web template or plugin you throw at me (like ZC). All else is a cake-walk.

I have a client who needs a shopping cart for both dropshipping using multiple vendors, and shipping from their physical location. The dropship vendors all use product feeds to verify inventory before checkout.

I know that there are no add-ons that will do this for me automatically, because every product feed is different, and they all need to be programmed individually. The problem is that I don't know where to begin!

I can visualize the logic that I need to follow to make this happen, but I need a hint to get me started. I don't need a step-by-step tutorial, I just need one or two short and very geeky sentences that are full of keywords to help me down the right path with Google.

"You'll need to blah the blah in the blah, then blah blah blah."

Just replace "blah" with as much Google-friendly jargon as possible. Thanks!

(ZC version 1.3.9)

You're already beyond my programming pay grade, but I searched the forums for supplier feed and got several threads returned (especially those that contain posts by schoolboy) that seem to have info that might be useful.

Thanks stevesh

Yeah, the basic concept is out there. There's a store database, and several vendor data streams, and the database and data streams need to communicate via a third-party parsing system installed on the store's server. On customer check out, the shopping cart needs to "if / else" it's way through the list of vendors, as well as the store's physical inventory, in order to check the stock levels before placing the order.

What I'm confused about is (1) the right way to parse the data, (2) where the "if / else" logic statement goes.