Getting product feed data from Amazon UK

[jumbocruiser]

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I have really struggled to get my head around the Amazon API in the past and I was wondering if there is any tutorials/advice out there from people who have had success.

I work with PHP/MySQL sites mainly and have a database I would love to fill with Amazon products but my XML/SOAP skills are very poor.

Can anyone advise the best way to get a product feed of some sort into my MySQL database.

Christmas preparations are underway!

Thanks

[ZacZheng]

It sounds like you're having general problems communicating with their SOAP API, which given, is a pain to use.

Try searching for existing PHP libraries that'll take care the grunt of the work. e.g. Amazon API Access with PHP and XML (amazon, catalog, webservice, shop) - PHP Classes

Just out of interest, what are you plans once you have the database?

I've written a small web app with Ruby on Rails before which I used to create Adwords campaigns via their API for direct linking. This is a couple of years ago now. Worked fairly well, but I got annoyed with their 2 months delay in paying commission.

[gerry180]

If you're looking for a PHP library for the Amazon API try Tarzan: A fast, powerful PHP toolkit for building web applications with Amazon Web Services.

It includes libraries for the associates api as well as other amazon api services.

[jonsp]

For what it's worth the Amazon webservice can be a bit of a pig and of course has a learning curve. Have you looked at working with XML?

All you need to do is send Amazon a url with either a productid or some search terms (eg all books by John Grisham etc) plus the data you want back you receive an XML document in return which you can translate to HTML using some xsl. xsl is certainly easier to learn/use :-)

In effect you're querying Amazon's database rather than your own and no need to learn to use the webservice.

Cheers,
Jon

[Powerup]

Hi Jon,
I'd be interested to know what the URL is. Could you share it with us or point us in the right direction for how this works?

Thanks.

[digitalquill]

I have written a plugin that imports amazon products into a wordpress blog

have a look at Wordpress Amazon Import Plugin

see if it does what you need

Matt Houldsworth