Im trying to set up data feed from suppliers website to my own magenta store

robbie.dub

Hey everyone!

Im in the process of trying to set up a feed from my suppliers website to my magenta store. Im hoping that once its set up, any products that I’ve selected to have on my store will be automatically updated, e.g when my supplier runs out of stock, its updated on my own site of being out of stock.

I have the csv sheet downloaded with all the products, but I’m finding it difficult to find instructions to implement it into my store, and my supplier is unable to help me.

If anyone has experience doing this before I would really appreciate some any help you can give.

Thanks in advance


Robert

gctest50

Need to be careful before you start

- if you are taking a "live" feed off your suppliers website

what happens if they update their website in the future and it breaks your feed (hoping yours will be busy by then ) ?

LordNorbury

robbie.dub wrote: »

Hey everyone!

Im in the process of trying to set up a feed from my suppliers website to my magenta store. Im hoping that once its set up, any products that I’ve selected to have on my store will be automatically updated, e.g when my supplier runs out of stock, its updated on my own site of being out of stock.

I have the csv sheet downloaded with all the products, but I’m finding it difficult to find instructions to implement it into my store, and my supplier is unable to help me.

If anyone has experience doing this before I would really appreciate some any help you can give.

Thanks in advance


Robert

What size is the list of products you are dealing with here?

robbie.dub

Hey, The list I’ve downloaded contains 1100 products, but I’m going to try and get that down to about 100 of the best products if i can

robbie.dub

Thats a good point. If the supplier breaks the feed, what would be the case? would be a simple fix, or would it be starting from scratch again i wonder

neil_hosey

theres several approaches for this, all with there good and bad points:

1. Use the Magento SOAP or REST API

Write a standalone application that parses the CSV file and calls the MAgento API (loads of examples on the web).

Good Points: Loads of support for it and little maintenance needed.
Bad Points: Its soooo slow. Depending on the speed of your server, it could be anything up to 5-6 seconds per SKU.

2. Standalone app with an adapter that updates the magento DB.

I wrote a DB adapter for a .NET system i was working on, there are approx 6 tables that you need assuming you arent using any plugins to hold different stock quantities for different stores (i also accounted for this and it was quite complicated).

Good Points: Really fast obviously. They are just sql inserts.
Bad Points: if/when magento change the DB structure and you update your magento site, you are screwed if they change any of the inventory tables.

3. Use magmi's Datapump API

This is by far the best solution but there isnt much details on it. Its easy to set up to do a manual import using Magmi although i find the Datapump API more hassle.

Good Points: best solution, and very fast.
Bad Points: probably the most complicated to implement.

4. FTP CSV file to server and have cron job that uses magmi to import the CSV file based on a setup import template. PRobably also the easiest.

Hope that was some help
Neil

robbie.dub

Hey!
Thanks for your reply. I was looking at the solutions you posted. Im going to be honest, I don’t know much about how the data feeds work, so the solutions dont really make much sense to me, no offence, I’m just a little behind on the process of data feeds.

Could you explain the easiest solution you have posted a bit more for me if you get the chance.

Really appreciate the time you taken to post by the way, thanks for that!

neil_hosey

Sorry Robbie, didnt see your reply. How are you getting the CSV file?

Is it a regular feed being ftp'd to your server, or is it just a once off thing you want to import manually?