The Good Feed Guide (For Merchants)

[KGP]

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i think its not comet but maplin -if its the only one to do so...otherwise there are two of them ;-) - who provides the EAN of the product...i still recall the email sent by webgains informing of this feature..

[SimonQuick]

Hi there,

Ive recently taken over management of a large amount of the feeds at Buy.at.

My role has a big focus on the increase in performance and quality of the feeds so I am looking to discuss any improvements you would like to see to the feeds the merchants and ourselves provide. The point of EAN usage is a very valid one and I hope to see this and UPC adopted widely in 2009.

My email address is below so if any of you wish to contact me directly then please feel free.

I look forward to working with you in 2009.

Thanks
Simon

[kat_tradeplumbing]

I see both sides of the argument. How about this for a compromise?

Most merchants spend hours categorising their products to the Nth level so that customers can get to their products through various paths. Here is a very simplified example to demonstrate.

A customer might get to Bathroom Furniture though:

Home and Garden > DIY > Flat Pack Furniture
Home and Garden > Bathroom > Bathroom Furniture
Home and Garden > Furniture > Furniture for Bathrooms

The networks then do their best to map the merchant's categories against their own, standardised categories to simplify comparison/inclusion for the affiliates.

Would it not be possible for the Affiliate Networks to include both the re-processed version of the categories as defined by the network and also to provide the unadulterated version of the merchant's categorisation.

This will then provide the 'more is better' affiliates with as much information as they can eat, whilst still providing the network-standardised feed to other affiliates. The affiliate will then have the option of choosing which is best for him or her.

It would only take one more field on the feeds - granted, it would be a memo-sized field, but at least everyone would be happy, and no more work for the networks than they're already doing.

[Gavinio]

Would it not be possible for the Affiliate Networks to include both the re-processed version of the categories as defined by the network and also to provide the unadulterated version of the merchant's categorisation.

We can do that on dgmPro - The Dell Australia feed is an example.