Product Feeds module
 

Hello!

I'm happy to announce new Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 / X-Cart Next.



The module allows you to export your products to the following comparison shopping websites:

• Google Shopping
• eBay e-Commerce Network (shopping.com)
• Nextag
• Pricegrabber
• Shopzilla

Product variants go into feed files as separate lines.

The export process is split into multiple Ajax steps, so there should be no problems with servers that set a limit on the time allocated for PHP scripts to execute.

Some shopping engines require you to have extra columns (like Color, Size, etc) in your product feeds. With this module you can do it by mapping product attributes to these columns. If you have several "color" attributes (for example, "Color" attribute added for "Apparel" product class, and "Case color" attribute configured for "Notebooks" products), you can map all of them to the same "Color" column - the feed will contain that very attribute which exists for this particular product.

You can buy the module on this website page, or from your store back-end.


Feel free to post your questions and suggestions in this forum thread.

Thanks!

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Great feature ..

Question .. With this feature do you plan on offering the ability of allowing users to create their own custom feeds?

Example: Right now we currently partner with a site called Bonanza. It would be great to create a Bonanza Feed on our X-Cart page, than be able to set the column headers for the feed and automatically map the X-Cart form fields to the Bonanza form fields. Once that is created, we can download an CSV document of these fields (with all of our deal information) and than upload that into the Bonanza site.

Thanks,
Ryan

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hello Ryan,

Thank you for the feedback!

The ability to export products to a feed of a custom format is a good one - we thought of having the feature right from the start. However, after studying several feeds formats we found that almost every shopping engine would require custom programming to support all of its features.

For example, with Bonanza you should assign Bonanza categories on your products and convert product attributes to "traits" that look like "[[material: red]] [[condition: new]] [[brand: Gucci]]".

We could export basic columns and leave these special columns empty, but how useful would be such product feeds? If you have ideas on how to overcome this, please let me know.

Thanks!

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Yea every shopping site supports different column headers. For our team is is quite time consuming to have somebody essentially create a brand new CSV document, manually map the form headers, and copy and paste our content from one document to another ( assuming its updated ).

Instead of showing empty columns, why not just show columns that are relevant to my needs?

Example:

Within the Product Feed area, have a button that says "Create Custom Feed". Once you get to the next screen it shows a table view of ALL the current column fields within X-Cart.

Below that ask the user to enter in the name of the fields for their CSV document. Once those are made, ask the user to map the existing X-Cart form fields to the CSV custom form fields.

Similar to this picture on Salesforce (Field Mapping) = http://www3.formassembly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/mapping.png

- I recently built this type of feature for an custom ecommerce platform one of our clients is using.

= Basically you are giving clients the ability to build whatever they want, without being limited to empty, or unneeded fields that do not belong with X-Cart.

Just something to think about :)

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

I bought and installed the mode tonight and it doesn't work.

X-Cart 5 Business Version 5.1.3

Problem: Al of the Feed Settings Pages are "Blank"... only the Title is showing up:

Shopzilla feed settings

Nothing else is shown and it is the same for all the feeds.

How do I fix this mode?

Thanks,

Kevin

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Slava just got back from holiday today and he will contact you on this matter during next couple of days.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hello Kevin,

Can you check whether the following MySQL query returns some data, or gives an empty response?

SELECT category, name, value FROM xc_config WHERE category LIKE '%Shopzilla%';

If there is data in the database, the page should not be empty.

Also, do you see any errors in the logs?

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hello Slava,

I ran the MySQL query and there's data in the database and I looked at the error logs and I didn't see any errors. It said the mode was installed successfully.

But for some reason all the setting pages on the mode are empty except the title.

Not sure what to do?

BTW: I use TSS for my hosting company... VPS Professional Package.

Thanks,

Kevin

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Kevin,

Is the module settings page empty too? Also, is it possible to debug the issue right on your server?

Thanks!

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hello Slava,

Yes, the module settings page is there with the list of shopping feeds... but when you click on the "Settings" of any one of the Shopping feeds, all the setting pages are blank except the title.

How do I get a refund for this mode? I'm not going to pay X-Cart Tech $99.00 to fix a mode that should work. I purchased 5 other modes and installed a bunch of free ones and they all work just fine except this one.

I would like to get it fixed if possible but I'm not a techy kind of guy... so I don't know... let me know what I should do?

Thanks,

Kevin

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Kevin,

If you don't mind I can check why this happens on your server (for free). Just give me a temporary login to your backend and to your server. Please check your PMs.

Thanks,
Slava

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Please don't worry. Nobody is going to charge you for bugs (potential, since we are not sure that it's a bug indeed).

As Slava mentioned we are willing to help you and will do that free of charge.

Just post a new ticket via HelpDesk with a reference to this thread (to me, Alex Dyachkov, or Slava Petrov) with and access to your store (both admin area and FTP access) and we will check this issue out for you.

Thank you.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hello Slava!

I'm currently changing categories via the product feed tab and it's time consuming. I tried to add "googleShopping Category" in my import file and had the value based on the google_shopping_caetgories, but that didn't work. Is there any easy way to import this? Or at least have a default category assigned for all my products?

Your thought appreciated. Thanks!

Sarah

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hello Sarah,

You can update the feed category for multiple products at once:

1. Go to the back-end page listing your products
2. Select multiple products by ticking the checkbox
3. Click "More actions for selected" -> "Update feed categories" link
4. Choose feed categories for selected products and submit the changes

Does this work for you?

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hi Slava,

This is helpful. However, the option to Update feed categories is grayed out. Am I missing a step?

Sarah

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hi Slava,

Is there a fix for the grayed out "Update feed categories" from the "More actions for selected" drop down menu?
I'm still having to manually go to individual products to set categories in the product feed.

Can you help?

Thanks!

Sarah

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

This issue will be fixed in the next module version.
I hope to get it available for upgrade today.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

We have just released a major update to the Product Feeds module!

The new version (5.1.5) adds the following new features:
- The store administrator can specify feed filenames (default filenames were used before)
- You can configure the module to re-generate feeds through a cron job
- The modules stores exported data in a temporary file, so comparison shopping engines will never bump into an incomplete feed in case you make it available to them through a direct link.

Thanks!

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

I'm happy to announce that the new version of the module (5.2.5) now allows you to update the Google taxonomy directly from their website and notifies you if you have products having outdated Google categories.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Not able to export on "Product Feeds". It keeps spinning on http://???.com/admin.php?target=product_feeds. I have try to uninstall and remove from database. Still has problem exporting.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Do you have any error messages in the var/log/ directory? You may send the logs to me by e-mail: modsupport@x-cart.com

Thanks!

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

I've looked through your logs and found only one record related to Product Feeds module:
This might happen if the database is corrupted and has no data for the given feed.

Although there is only one Product Feeds related error, there is a lot of MySQL related errors that look like this:

So, I think that the problem may be caused by your server, not the module. Who do you host your website with? Have you tried our hosting services?

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

I installed the Product Feeds module today and I'm pretty disappointed too. There are several issues. One is that I would expect the default setup for any of the selected feeds to be fully populated out of the box. Instead the feeds generated are blank. When I go to configure them (which I really shouldn't have to do), there are bunches of fields missing. Right now, I'm calling this a don't buy / poor choice.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

The problem is that every shopping website has its own set of categories and requires a category from this set to be selected for each your product that goes into the feed.

Since there is no way to automatically guess what feed categories your products belong to, you have to choose the feed categories manually. You can do it when editing a product (the "Feed categories" tab), or from the list of products in the back end (select products and perform the "Update categories" action).

Also, there is a checkbox on the feed settings page. When enabled, it includes products without feed categories into feeds. However, most shopping sites will consider this as a problem and display a warning when importing the feeds. That's why the setting is disabled.


Please can you clarify what fields are missing?

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

The attached custom module adds two buttons that look through product attributes and automatically select "Color" and "Size" ones.

Although the module has no official support and will likely work not for all users, I think it may be useful for those who have a lot of color and size attributes defined across multiple products and product classes.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Product Feeds v5.2.6 has been released.

The changes are:
- added the ability to map product attributes to the "unit pricing measure" and "unit pricing base measure" columns in Google Shopping feeds
- added the full support for Sale module: now feeds (that have such a column) include the original product price as well as the on-sale one
- fixed wrong characters in a few categories from the Google taxonomy
- changed the signature of \XLite\Module\QSL\ProductFeeds\Core\FeedItem::__ca ll() method to match the new version of X-Cart 5 (without the change a warning was recorder into log files)

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hi, how can I add a column with the inventory, right now only is "Available" that is good but also I need to specified the quantity with number

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

What shopping comparison website do you need this for?
As far as I remember some of the feeds require "Available" instead of the actual number of units in the stock.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

I use google shopping also for other site all is perfect only I need also specific the inventory in number

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

http://icecat.biz/es/p/brother/lc-75m/cartuchos-de-tinta-0012502627326-Brother-Innobella-8167736.html

because I dont specified the inventory with number, all my products show not stock

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Hm, this comparison shopping website is not supported out of the box by the module.
Do you create a custom module that adds this feed type?

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

I use the same data feed for google shopping and icecat, in Icecat I just map the columns of the datafeed with his fiels and thats it

I just need the inventory in number


thank you

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Unfortunately, at the moment it is possible via a custom module only.
You should implement a new feed class that will export data into a feed similar to the Google Shopping one, but with the custom column.

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

ok, can you send me the price of the custom module

thank you

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Please contact our sales staff to get the price quote:
http://www.x-cart.com/custom-development.html

Re: Product Feeds module for X-Cart 5 released
 

Product Feeds v5.2.7 has been released.

It fixes the issue with variant prices not going into feeds correctly.

Re: Product Feeds module
 

Product Feeds v5.2.8 has been released.

It has extra lines in the var/feeds/.htaccess file that prevent caching of feed files by browsers.

Re: Product Feeds module
 

When I generate a feed for Google Shopping I get every product with errors. I need to include size, color and other information. When I go to Product Feeds in Catalogand try to change the settings for google shopping the Column mapping is only showing Database #, Item SKU,Family SKU, and Manufacturer. There are no other choices for price, color, variant, etc etc. All of our products are set up with variants of color+size for every shoe and each combination has its own SKU umber. How is this supposed to be configured? Should I be seeing more choices in the column mapping list?

Re: Product Feeds module
 

Hello!


The module allows you to choose from global and class attributes and hides attributes configure on per-product level (otherwise you will see every your product in the list of attributes to choose from).
How did you configure colors and sizes? Did you switch to the Global tab?

Re: Product Feeds module
 

Hi. Google product upload requires a price for each item. In the module settings for google there are two entries for Unit pricing, but there is no choice to select price from a product. Are you saying that in order to use this module we have to move the PRICE of all of our products into a global attribute and not use the PRICE fields that x-cart provides for products? The only choices available in the UI are Database #, Item SKU, and Family SKU. How can this be correct? Is these something wrong with the install that is not showing PRICE as something we can select?