16 replies to this topic

[royster13]

What is an XML feed and what can you do with it?

I am trying to improve some of my websites....And wondering how I can use XML feeds to do this....Am I stuck with the prices or can I adjust them for C$ (to add exchange and duty if applicable)....How do you put the XML feed into your website?....

Probably not an easy answer but any comments would be appreciated....

[Allan]

XML means in my world...eXtra Money Lost.:D:D

Really, it means...eXtensible Markup Language but I am sure you knew that.

[tcbcorp.com]

Royce, on my Mac I use a program called NetNewsWire to watch RSS(XML) feeds from over 31 sources to keep me updated on what is happening.. I actually saw this post on a feed that was set up here on DT.

[ATTACH]4435[/ATTACH]

At TC&B we offer a couple of feeds:

• Last 50 product Examples: http://www.tcbcorp.com/tools/rss.php
  
• Journal Posts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TcbJournal
  
• Twitter Updates: http://twitter.com/s...ne/60689899.rss

you can change content in the feed at anytime.. so a feed with pricing might actually be helpful for a Distrbutor.

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Edited by tcbcorp.com, 22 December 2009 - 08:59 AM.
forgot screen shot

[royster13]

Let me clarify a bit.....I want to take an XML feed of a suppliers catalogue & pricing and use to update my website's online catalogue.....

[tcbcorp.com]

with some server side scripts that would be no problem.. you just need to:
1. parse - the suppliers feed
2. edit - your prices would want to have a database set up to edit these unless you go by a standard % increase
3. format - html / xml rss feed
4. display

only clear issue I see is if you do a custom pricing and not a standard % you will need to continually maintain the triggers and values for each new product.

hope this is the information you were looking for,

[prhewy]

royster13 said:

Let me clarify a bit.....I want to take an XML feed of a suppliers catalogue & pricing and use to update my website's online catalogue.....

--

Which suppliers give you an xml database??

Thanks

Ray

[royster13]

None have been brought to my attention yet.....

[mrsmee89]

I think that there is a way to integrate a database into your website.
PS. Leeds world allows you to download an Excel formatted file of their products info,pricing, and images. Here is the link

[Chris Miller]

prhewy said:

--

Which suppliers give you an xml database??

Thanks

Ray

Norwood has all products, across all lines in XML format. Was approx. 6000 products last time I checked. Very easy way to jump start a new website.

[tmertz]

DistributorCentral offers an XML data feed for all of our Suppliers products at no charge. In our business model our Suppliers own their product data and we provide it at no charge to Distributors through as many means as possible.

www.distributorcentral.com/resources/education/guides/ProductXMLDataFeed.pdf

[prhewy]

Yes, I signed up for this xml feed with DC.. but it was $10/month, not free.

tmertz said:

DistributorCentral offers an XML data feed for all of our Suppliers products at no charge. In our business model our Suppliers own their product data and we provide it at no charge to Distributors through as many means as possible.

www.distributorcentral.com/resources/education/guides/ProductXMLDataFeed.pdf

[royster13]

Ray I think he was referring to suppliers.....Suppliers can get it free and then you get it from the supplier....

[tmertz]

We have switched it to a free service for Distributors provided by Suppliers.

[prhewy]

tmertz said:

We have switched it to a free service for Distributors provided by Suppliers.

That is great news... we are real excited to have it available. Asi wanted hundreds for their feed!.. .arg...

[royster13]

So Ray with multiple sources of data files will it take some effort to keep these up to date versus getting them all from a single source such as ASI?.....

And how do you turn the feeds into a website?....I have been reading up and the "mush" in my head just keeps getting mushier.....

[prhewy]

royster13 said:

So Ray with multiple sources of data files will it take some effort to keep these up to date versus getting them all from a single source such as ASI?.....

And how do you turn the feeds into a website?....I have been reading up and the "mush" in my head just keeps getting mushier.....

We have not yet started to use the DC xml feed, but as I understand it, it will create a feed of everything I catalog into a given DC web site creation. The data will be imported into our shopping cart on this new site we created. We are about 3-4 weeks from actually importing this data.

As for the tech of actually making it work, I leave that for my tech guy. :)

[tmertz]

royster13 said:

So Ray with multiple sources of data files will it take some effort to keep these up to date versus getting them all from a single source such as ASI?.....

DistributorCentral provides one source of data files. We just allow smaller sets of data to be retrieved just as we do when we allow Distributors to create mini catalogs on their websites.

Most of our e-commerce Distributors are using a subset of our data instead of using the product database in it's entirety.

DistributorCentral's Suppliers will keep the data up to date.