[happypoon]

If anyone would provide some input regarding their experience with the merchandiser datafeeds, I'd appreciate it.

I am basically ready to start using it and applied today but am having some second guesses after a discussion with OS concerning why use their direct feed vs using the merchandiser feed.

Speficially what was said was that (for the OS datafeed) LS never removes old products hence it is all the 1.5 million products that have been thru OS. A slew of those will be out of stock where as the private feed is updated and oos products removed nightly.

With this said:

1) Is "non removal" of out of stock items the normal practice in all merchandiser feeds? If it is, this is a serious drawback that will preclude me from using it.

2) Is there a way to identify oos items in the feed itself and you just have to endure the extra bandwidth associated with transfering and processing all the oos items?

I'd appreciate it if linkshare or anyone who has input regarding this would give me the low down.

I have a hard time believing that this is common practice but I do know when I go to get links I see some that still exist that were expired from 2002 as well so while I find it hard to believe, I'm not questioning anyones statements.

It's to bad Steve is touting their process as having a cookieless system because if they used them, they'd likely be valid "forever" and never expire.

[MichaelColey]

For Overstock, you'll definitely want to use their direct datafeed. With that, you can pick just the categories you want. For the other Linkshare merchants (except perhaps Buy.com with their million plus uncategorized products), merchandiser works great.

There is an Availability field in the feeds. Not all merchants use it. I think many just send their currently active products.

Most merchants don't go through as many products as Overstock.com, so it's usually not an issue either way.

[jtoskey]

Blue Nile uses LinkShare's Merchandiser Program and we're really happy with it.

As a merchant, we're responsible for updating our feed to LinkShare daily, but we only send changes to them. So if something is removed from our site, we let LinkShare know to remove it from Merchandiser.

[alnino1]

It's up to the merchant to give Linkshare a current feed. As long as the merchant keeps the feed updated as their products change, there should (emphasis on should) be no problem.

[happypoon]

OK I'm confused.

John - you send in "only changes" but it sounds like Petmeds sends in an entire feed?

Perhaps OS will chime in later and explian why all of their 1.5 million products ever marketed remain in the ls datafeed? I have a hard time believing that if they can control that they would unless they don't care about affiliates marketing oos items and sending visitors to their site to find that out.

Something just doesn't add up. I see smoke but not sure where it's coming from.

Anybody else have input or care to elaborate?

[jtoskey]

Here is an example of what I get daily from LinkShare when they pick up our data:


This message confirms that LinkShare has processed your Merchandiser file. Below find a summary of updated records that will be published for affiliates.

Date/Time Received: Fri Aug 20 17:05:04 2004 GMT
File Name: 3031_nmerchandis20040820.txt
Total Products Sent (different to last upload): 30
Total Products Processed: 30
Total Products Deleted: 2
Total Products Added: 20
Total Products Updated: 4
Total Products Unchanged: 4
Total Errors: 0

Hope this helps (but I don't think it really answers your question )

[happypoon]

Thanks John,

I'm going ahead with the LS access and will certaily be providing coverage for your products! I'll send you an email and provide a heads up.