Product feeds through affiliate sites

[WaftyCrank]

I'm in need of some advice from the good people of AD who have more clue than I do on these things.

I'm in the process of creating a review based website where end users can post product reviews. The process is simple, the user inputs a brand then model, say Samsung Galaxy S. What I want to achieve is once a user has posted the review that I can link to an affiliate site which will provide a feed to give me a product description.

I'm sure there are some clever people on here that have implemented something like this already so I'm looking for guidance. I'm not after the coding aspect as I'm working with a developer to do that portion. It's guidance on affiliate network, and what I'd need to do in order to implement this.

What I'm needing is the product description and a product picture from a feed. I don't even need the ability to click through to buy one of these products, just the information on said product. The product could be a phone, a bottle of shampoo, a can of pepsi or something else.

Can anyone help point me in the right direction please?

 

[accelerator]

I can't understand precisely what you want to do, but I think you might find using XML WebServices suitable. Affiliate Window has the ShopWindow API, see shopwindowforum.com for help, and Amazon has an API too.

I really could do with learning XML WebServices properly but I'm too busy with other stuff ...

Rgds

 

[AssetDomains]

All the big networks provide such feeds not sure how happy they would be for you to use them without some sort of purchase link.
As for accessing the feed it varies between networks easy to do whichever you use though just a case of signing up with suitable merchants.

 

[WaftyCrank]

Thanks guys.
Accelerator basically the review for a product will be formatted as a title using the brand and model. It will display a picture (hopefully) of said product and I'd like to display the description so it gives a more concise level of information.

I don't need that portion of the feed to have a clickable link with it. I will be using affiliate marketing on the back of the review content. I'd just like a way for the site to say ok someone has posted a review about an xbox 360. So what I'll do now is look at affiliate window for instance, find that product and an image, obtain a feed, whip out description of the xbox 360 and a photo and whollop it into the review.

The problem I see is that I may not be signed up to a merchant that has said product or even to a merchant that sells said product before the review is posted. I was kind of hoping there would be some sort of feed service that let's you ask for particular product and it will pass back the info required. I'm thinking this isn't a service that even exists therefore what is the best way to achieve the results I need?

I don't want to dictate the products prior to a review being left by just obtaining feeds on every possible product and building them in without a review. I'd rather it grow organically, if possible.

 

[expertc]

It is possible to achieve using API search. Well, not all networks would provide you with extensive info (e.g. eBay API does not give description). But likes of Amazon would. Just use Amazon API to retrieve the info (might be by a cron job or manually) and use only some of the information like image and description. Still don't know if Amazon would be happy if you don't provide a link, even a direct link without your aff ID.

P.S. You can find virtually everything on Amazon.

 

[WaftyCrank]

So would it be a case of signing up for the amazon affiliate system and they'd provide a feed for that purpose? I'd be happy to give a courtesy link on each description along lines of 'description provided by Amazon.co.uk'

 

[expertc]

So would it be a case of signing up for the amazon affiliate system and they'd provide a feed for that purpose? I'd be happy to give a customer link on each description along lines of 'description provided by Amazon.co.uk'

Feed is different from API search. With API search you can retrieve just one product straight from Amazon with all the information and pictures. But generally you just sign up with them and get your API key.

 

[WaftyCrank]

Ok I'll put that to my developer and see what he says. Thanks everyone.

 

[AssetDomains]

Having a look at one of my accounts this my be interesting for you commission junction will ftp there feeds directly to your server for you.
You could sign up with a merchant like Argos have there complete catalog sent to you daily then have your developer code something to search the feed for the required product.
Out of interest if your happy to put a link back to the site were you get data from why wouldnt you just have it contain your affiliate ID

 

[WaftyCrank]

The product description isn't the right place for there to be a link as it would look out of place. However if it was a requirement to keep the merchant happy that at least a link is given then I probably would do it as described above and just contain the aff code. However if I can get away without the link I'd prefer it that way.

There will be affiliate ads within the site relating to the content I just don't feel the product description is the right location for it.
Maybe I'm being too picky but i'm trying no to over advertise on the site. Less is more hopefully.

 

[AssetDomains]

All the feeds I've seen the any links come in a separate field's so its your choice to have them or not and if you do were you would place them.
You just need to find a merchant who doesn't keep a close eye on there advertisers amazon would probably be perfect for that I guess although I'm not sure there provide an actual feed file anymore think there more API based

 

[accelerator]

From what I understand, the product in question will be user generated, so can be any product. If this is the case, you want to be using WebServices, which will have the millions of products ready to be queried, as opposed to attempting to download feeds to give access to the millions of products ... if you get my drift

Rgds

 

[WaftyCrank]

Thanks everyone. I'll check out webservices too.

 

[WaftyCrank]

Out if curiosity, what's the URL to web services?

 

[ratboy]

Try:

- wordpress with the multifeed plugin

Use the csv datafeed from your chosen merchant. Upload via the multifeed plugin to create a post for each item. You should be able to find the right columns for pic and description, and also afflink.

The uploading takes hardly any time and you'll have a massive site ready for reviews etc.

Johnny