I use a mix of all the ones you've posted. Lookup tables are the best as you only have to map stuff once - either merchat A category B always goes into my category Z or, unfortunately, merchat A product BCDEF goes into my category Z.
This at least means you can automate things a bit, but you still have the problem of merchants changing their categories/product ids etc.
To be honest I'm giving up on that area a bit and just focussing on getting as many products into the search engines as possible. If a user searches for a specific dishwasher, as long as they get to your page that then links to the manufacturer, it doesn't really matter that you can't show other products in a dishwasher category.
I'm a lazy affiliate and I like things that will look after themselves. If you can put in the time involved with matching categories and products, then I'm sure your site is more likely to get repeat visitors.
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