Using ProductCart - Automation Questions

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Automation Questions

Printed From: ProductCart E-Commerce Solutions
Category: ProductCart
Forum Name: Using ProductCart
Forum Description: Running your store with ProductCart
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1859
Printed Date: 24-November-2024 at 2:00am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Automation Questions

Posted By: chris_b
Subject: Automation Questions
Date Posted: 30-July-2008 at 9:06pm

I have a question about automation.

I have seen stores with 20,000 to 40,000 products in them and the distributor offers a data feed with updates on the prices and new products. I am considering setting up an account with them and opening a new store.

1) How would you pull the information into your cart that the distributor has available so that prices would get updated and new products added?

Chris

Replies:

Posted By: Greg Dinger
Date Posted: 30-July-2008 at 9:24pm

I have a client running a different cart, but he has a distributor that does have a data feed that identifies available products as well as price changes.

We wrote a script that when pointed at this price change feed will identify the before/after values. That script could just as easily (and will eventually for that client) write the results to a file that can be processed as an update against the product database.

So let's say this script is altered to identify which are new products, and which are price changes, that it outputs either a single XLS (Or a pair at your preference) which would be formatted according to the needs of the product import tool.

And since you regularly use that tool, you know just what to do next - upload and post against either of your stores.

There will be some performance issues, of course, in terms of dealing with such a large file, but I've already stress tested the current script with at least 5000 records in the download from the distributor and it played just fine.

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GreyBeard Design Group

Certified ProductCart Developer

Web Design/Development/Hosting

http://tinyurl.com/5c8t4t" rel="nofollow - Add-Ons & Custom Code |

Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 30-July-2008 at 9:24pm

Hi Chris, you would probably want to look at using the XML Tools:

http://www.earlyimpact.com/productcart/xml/ - http://www.earlyimpact.com/productcart/xml/

The tools allow a third party to update information in the ProductCart database without user interaction.

If you business partner is not able to create an XML data feed that ProductCart can take in, then you would have to hire a developer to create an application in between that would take the data and re-format it.

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The ProductCart Team

Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software

Posted By: chris_b
Date Posted: 30-July-2008 at 9:54pm

Thanks Greg, I will touchbase with you on this.

EI, two of the distributors that we buy from have the data feed in xml format.

I see a lot of people talking about it, but not a lot of information on the specifics of how it all works, especially fo those of us without any programming knowledge!

Chris