John Lewis Datafeed - Unusable?

[clint45]

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Right. For my latest datafeed moan, I turn my attention to the brand spanking new John Lewis Affiliate Window feed.

Now, John Lewis' feeds on other networks have always left a lot to be desired. Categorisation has never been their strong point. To make use of their feeds always requires a period of intense study, followed by a prolonged period of intense mapping and parsing. Laptops in one of their feeds, for example, are categorised as something like:
"Gifts & Flowers:Gifts for Him:Gardening Tools:House & Garden:Technology & Handbags". I exaggerate only slightly.

These other feeds are very difficult to use, but I'm afraid the AW feed is all but impossible. The feed has no "Manufacturer/Brand" field, no "Model Number" field, and no "stock-level" field, and the categorisation is very thin and full of discrepancies.

A few examples:

"Television Sets" contains a single mobile phone, and no televisions.

"TV, Video, Photography & Graphics" - this is great as long as someone is looking to buy something, anything, just so long as its a TV, a video, a photographic-implement, or some kind of a graphicsy-thing. Oh, and ideally they wouldn't care what brand or model it was either.

And my personal favourite (although I've only looked at five categories so far) has got to be "Consumer Electronics". A wide-ranging description if ever there was one, and just as well, because it is home to a range of personal computers, laptops, range cookers, washing machines, DVD Players, Disco Lights, and more.

I don't suppose there's any chance of sorting this out?

PS: To any other Merchants who wonder why so few people are using their datafeeds; John Lewis are far from alone in having an unuseable one. I'd say, around a third of the feeds we look at are unuseable for similar reasons.

[adamski]

Hi Clint45

We are looking into the issues addressed here and will get back to you shortly. Apologies for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.

Once again, we thank you for your constructive feedback. It is a great help in ensuring we get things working as they should.

Kind regards

Adam Ross
Key Account Manager
Affiliate Window Ltd.

[futureweb]

I have written a little asp script to sort the Categories on the fly it allows you to change them as you go. Its a bit of a pain with large feeds but I think its the way to go I set my own parent & subcats then drop the mastercategory into each of these via 2 combo boxes as is or I can edit it to a more sutable name. Still working on the whole picture but that part is in place.

[futureweb]

Would also be nice if there were more uniform categories for instance I have found this in a few feeds.

Clothing, Lingerie & Accessories
Which contains mens clothes womens clothes etc all bundled under the same cat making it a nightmare to sort.

[clint45]

Thanks Adam, that's good news.

Futureweb - I have a feeling that the innadequate kind of categorisation to which you and I refer, e.g. "Clothing, Lingerie & Accessories", stems from a merchant's basic misunderstanding about what these category fields are for.
Or, more accurately, a misunderstanding about how their feeds are going to be used.

After all, without exception, merchant's categorise their own websites
sensibly. No merchant on earth would have a page devoted to Clothing, Lingerie, and Accessories. So there must be a disconnect between what they think a feed is for, and what they are actually for. If they could be made to think of a feed as an extension of their own websites, for example, it might help things to improve.

All of my recent datafeed-related frustrations have spurred me to write a short, general-purpose, if highly subjective, guide to what makes a "good" versus a "bad" feed. I'm hoping that it might reach some merchants (and Affiliate Network Managers), and help to clear up the apparent misunderstandings. Not sure where to post it though...the "Product Feed" forum is a bit of a desert.