Before I am buying the script there is one thing I am thinking of. What I have understood is Price Tapestry not a spider so I need all the prices, exact link to the product and products information from the shops in .xml-files. What do I need from the shops? Do you have an example of the .xml-file that they have to fill in or do they normally have everything collected in some kind of database that they can email me?
Iam from Sweden and are only planning to add Swedish shop
Hi,
Price Tapestry is designed to work with data feeds (like XML files or text files) that are normally provided by an Affiliate Network on behalf of the merchant (shop). In a few cases, the shops do provide the data themselves, but the majority of shops work with a network.
Trade Doubler is one of the biggest affiliate networks in Europe, and they operate in Sweden:
http://www.tradedoubler.com/pan/index.jsp?reset=true
One way to get started, you would need to become a member of Trade Doubler and then then join some of their programs for the shops you want to promote. Then, if they have a product feed you can download it from Trade Doubler. However you get the files, the information you need is:
Product Name
Product URL
Price
...and you can also use:
Description
Image URL
If you ever get a feed directly from the shop, it is not normally an affiliate URL so you would not get any money if people use the link. An affiliate URL does not link to the shop directly but goes via the network. Here is an example XML file for one of my merchants on WebPriceCheck.co.uk:
http://www.pricetapestry.com/samples/aw_alaskan.xml
You will be able to see in that file that the links do not go straight to the shop (Alaskan Air Conditioners), but instead, they go to Affiliate Window (like Trade Doubler) who then forward the visitor to the shop (and I get the commission if they buy!)
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
David.