Price compare different product names

Submitted by Stew on Fri, 2011-04-15 10:24 in Price Tapestry

Hi there,

Im trying to figure out how possible it is to compare prices for products with different product names. I'm looking at the product feeds and cannot see and SKU's or ID's that match.

So it sees just the brand names and the product names are the only thing to focus on.

If the product names are differing - is there any solution to try and match the products - maybe a type of fuzzy percentage match (based on how many words match in the name, once the brand names already match?) thus you could say if the words match up by 20% and the brand matches then its the same product.

Or are there any existing easier solutions?

Many Thanks,

Stew

Hello Stew, It's actually an

Submitted by support on Fri, 2011-04-15 10:46

Hello Stew,

It's actually an extremely complex computational problem i'm afraid to attempt to automatically match products! If your site is niche and SKU / EAN values are not available, I would recommend investing time in your Product Mapping, which support keyword matching. This can be useful if your product names often have model numbers, but the actual name can vary significantly. In this scenario you can create a master product name, for example "Sony Bravia KS32W5000", and then in the alternatives box on the configuration page for the mapping simply enter "KS32W5000" and then anything with that keyword in the name will be imported with the master product name...

I appreciate that may not be realistic, perhaps if you're not sure if you could post a couple of examples from your niche that should be matched I'll have a think...

Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com

Hi Stew, There are PHP

Submitted by Keeop on Fri, 2011-04-15 10:59

Hi Stew,

There are PHP functions available to create a 'fuzzy logic' style matching. Check out the 'levenshtein' and 'similar_text' functions on the PHP site. Do a bit of Googling and you may find a ready-made script that you could adapt.

Cheers.
Keeop

Hi David, Many thanks for

Submitted by Stew on Fri, 2011-04-15 11:44

Hi David,

Many thanks for the reply here, product mapping may be the way forward for us, I'll send you an email now if thats OK with a couple of examples to see what is possible,

Many Thanks

Hi Keeop, Thanks for the

Submitted by Stew on Fri, 2011-04-15 11:45

Hi Keeop,

Thanks for the recommendations, if we cant get product mapping to work, then those functions will definitely be useful,

Thanks