B&Q Datafeed - Anyone around?

[paraleadogg]

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Hi - I have just been doing some usability testing on the B&Q website and discovered that there are products within their AW datafeed that are not available to purchase online.

Can someone explain to me why these are included in the feed as obviously there is no way I (nor anyone else) could earn a commision on these items?

[gerry180]

Either missed by the tech teams or after free traffic? My guess is the affiliate feeds are often a bi-product of the merchants database systems.

Its a pain. not just with B&Q. In the past we've found a number of electrical items are "in-store only" (hundreds) at several merchants. I raised it with AW last year and for now the problem is not as bad as it was at least with our electrical merchants.

Search G for site:merchant.com "In-store only" (or whatever they use) to get an idea how many and then take a closer look at the feed to see if they're getting included.

[paraleadogg]

Well - the ones that are "in store" only seem to be all products that do NOT have a delivery date and cost set in the feed - and that means out of 33,000 products only 9,000 are available online

(Those figures may not be accurate as there is the possibility those fields do not relate directly to in store or online - but at this stage this is my best guess)

[jonsp]

Well - the ones that are "in store" only seem to be all products that do NOT have a delivery date and cost set in the feed - and that means out of 33,000 products only 9,000 are available online

Then you've cracked it - delivery date and cost not in the feed = not available online. Sounds logical.
Maybe you could test it by writing a script to run through the feed once and check each product page for "in store only" or whatever text they put to denote an item only being available in store.

To be fair the merchant probably just dumps their whole product table into a csv every so often and the networks just publish the feed they're given

[paraleadogg]

Yup - certainly seems logical - shame i had to find out this way though - god knows how much traffic i have sent to products that have no chance of returning a commision

A little bit annoying to say the least

Can anyone from the network confirm or deny the above?

[Safiyya]

Hi all,

We'll checkout the b&q data feed to see why products not available online are showing in the feed, in the mean time, can you pm me some links so it'll be easier to find the issue?

Many thanks,

Safiyya

[OliAW]

Hi all, just to update everybody..

I've been looking into this and it does appear some products in the feed are unable to be purchased for delivery online.

To clarify, there are some products that are available for purchase and delivery online..

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9294655&fh_locat ion=//catalog01/en_GB/categories<{9372014}/categories<{9372035}/categories<{9372172}/categories<{9392013}/categories<{9392016}/specificationsProductType=complete_toilets

And others that are available for in-store payment and collection only..

MAKITA 8391DWPE 18V Combi Drill + 2 Batteries, 8391DWPE

I'm in contact with B&Q to resolve the issue and understand exactly why these products are featured in the feed.

When I have some answers I'll update the thread. Many thanks for your patience.

All the best,
Oli

[OliAW]

Hi all, good news..

I can confirm that all orders made using the Reserve & Collect service are indeed tracked by Affiliate Window and commission is awarded on these sales, despite the transaction happening in-store.

So to clarify, for Reserve & Collect purchases where the customer has to go into a store to pay and collect their item, we still record the transaction details in the Affiliate Window interface. If the customer completes and goes in to pay and collect their item we approve the commission. If the customer fails to pay for and collect their item, the commission is declined.

I apologise for any confusion if this wasn't immediately clear.

If you have any further questions you can email me personally at oli.west@affiliatewindow.com

All the best,
Oli