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Inventory EDI

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dccreatives View Drop Down
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    Posted: 30-April-2009 at 8:48pm

Being that we don't really stock our items, but use drop shippers, it is quite time consuming to have to manually check the inventory levels every day, against the products that we have on our site.

A couple of my suppliers suggested that we use EDI - Electronic Data Interchange. They would simpy email me a file which would plug in to our system to check and update inventory levels automatically.
Is this something that would integrate with tProduct Cart+ Apparel-Add-On?
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Greg Dinger View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Greg Dinger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-April-2009 at 9:20pm
ProductCart contains no direct support for EDI transactions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Interchange
 
You would need to determine what format file these suppliers propose to offer, then you would need to build custom software that would read such a format and post it against the store database.
 
EDI is somewhat "old world" technology, and was very popular with large IT shops back in the 90's.  (I built EDI systems back in the day to talk to vendors such as Mervyns, JC Penney's and Toys R Us using large IBM AS/400 corporate systems.)  And while it is obviously still out there, a more current technology is the use of XML feeds. 
 
For example, there is a distributor (CWR) in the electronics sector who makes available a daily XML download of certain product data that their wholesalers may obtain and use.  We began working on an interface to that data feed, but stopped when the client decided to change directions.  Our approach was to use the structure of the "product import" tool, replacing the CSV input with XML.  However, Dan Anderson at www.netprofits.biz tells me that he has also completed a very robust integration to the same distributor.  It's a 1-click operation that one runs from the admin.
 
If your suppliers could make the data available in XML form, the module that Dan created might be a very tasty solution.  I'd suggest you determine the answer to this question, and if positive, communicate with Dan to see if his module could be cloned to suit your needs.


Edited by Greg Dinger - 30-April-2009 at 9:24pm
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dccreatives View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dccreatives Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-April-2009 at 9:29pm
Thanks. I'll look into that.
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