Data Feeds
From i.STAR Help
i.STAR’s Optional Data Feed Feature
Affiliate programs are one way that retailers can expand their online presence through the established presence and marketing efforts of another entity. Affiliate relationships involve either direct selling for a retailer or a referral of business to the retailer’s e-commerce site with the affiliate typically earning a commission for the resulting sale. Manufacturers may also act as affiliates for a retailer.
In a broad sense, an affiliate program is any type of revenue sharing program where an affiliate web site receives a portion of income for delivering sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant web site.
Not only do affiliates drive traffic to the retailer's website, but the links from the affiliate to the retailer is picked up by search engine spiders and that results in a more favorable score for indexing the site.
The data feeds CAM COMMERCE offers allows our retailers to take advantage of the type of affiliate programs that will include the retailer's inventory on their site like Amazon and Froogle or many manufacturers by creating the formatted inventory upload file that the affiliates need to be able to display the items.
i.STAR’s data feeds can create text files in a CSV or XML format with product information from i.STAR based upon a custom format specified by the retailer.
The follows fields are available for use within the data feeds:
ID (a composite of the style and vendor number in one field) short description long description picture url thumbnail url department name department code class name class code subclass name subclass code manufacturer name manufacturer code add to cart url product detail url price long description (no CRLF or no HTML) category group season model ID style color size subsize SKU 2nd SKU on hand quantity in stock flag (y/n)
Datafeeds can contain hierarchical relationships between products and SKUs (the products colors/sizes/subsizes). Additionally, when accessing the SKUs in the data feed you can access: Color code, size code, subsize code, SKU (as generated in STAR), 2nd UPC (as entered in Alias Setup/type UPC), on hand quantity (at ship from store only), and an in stock (Y/N) flag.
Please note: Although not common, some retailers have more than one set of 2nd SKUs defined in their system. 2nd SKUs are from the Alias Setup table, type UPC. I.STAR will import the first 2nd SKU it finds for an item only. This is based on which it finds first in the database – may or may not be the first one entered through the Alias Setup table. If you have more than one set of 2nd SKUs defined, you may not want to use this field in a datafeed.)
Data Feed files are created by the retailer and then are available to upload or email to an affiliate, vendor, etc.
What is not supported by i.STAR’s Data Feeds:
timed uploads of datafeeds dynamically created data on demand – user must create the feed file from the control panel
Generating a Data Feed:
User must first log into the sites admin area ie. www.domainname.com/admin.
1) User sets up a data feed format (CSV, XML, etc.) and saves it for later use.
2) User chooses styles to include in the data feed by selecting department, class, subclass, and manufacturer (or all departments to include all products).
3) User selects a data feed format (from what is created in step 1 previously).
4) User inputs their e-mail address and clicks "Create".
5) The data feed is created, zipped out, and then e-mailed as an attachment to the e-mail address provided in step 4.
How to Get Datafeeds
If you would like to use i.STAR’s datafeed feature, please submit a help ticket requesting this feature -- http://tickets.istarhelp.com. The monthly cost is $30 and a one time set up fee of $99.
Training
If training is needed to use the datafeed, please submit a ticket request on http://tickets.istarhelp.com/. Training is billable at the rate of $120/hour. Some affiliates accepting datafeeds require extensive static information to be embedded with the dynamic data provided by i.STAR. Additionally, the feed format requirements may change at the discretion of the feed recipient. Please feel free to schedule training time to assist in your efforts with your marketing affiliate’s datafeeds.
