osclover Posted March 30, 2006 Posted March 30, 2006 A client of mine wants to become an affiliate of overstock. He'll be using overstock's product to show and sell at his site. Can I use oscommerce with overstock? I want to use oscommerce due to its numerous great features. I would love to know if oscommerce has been integrated (or configured for ) any sites like overstock.com or something similar... Visting the following 2 overstock pages might be helpful http://www.overstock.com/shop_alliance.html http://www.overstock.com/aff_faq_skin.html (this page contains the code one has to embedd in his/herwebsite in order to be linked to overstock.com)
osclover Posted March 30, 2006 Author Posted March 30, 2006 I would also like to mention that personally I don't get the concept of overstock much (technically) as yet as to how is it going to work... It would be good if someone could explain as to who do one setup sites for overstock and other such sites...
Guest Posted March 30, 2006 Posted March 30, 2006 Nadeem, Good question...and excellent learning opportunity for any serious programmer. I contacted Adam Brumfield (Affiliate Program Admin) from Overstock.com and he is going to send me the API documentation with sample data files. This sounds like an interesting project...
osclover Posted April 1, 2006 Author Posted April 1, 2006 I hope you'll start working on it and will help me as well as other members of the community here in these forums. :)
osclover Posted April 1, 2006 Author Posted April 1, 2006 If somone could guide me as to how should i do it, this will be great...
Guest Posted April 1, 2006 Posted April 1, 2006 If somone could guide me as to how should i do it, this will be great... Sure...it's actually rather easy. There are 2 methods of data access through Overstock.com. The first is raw delimited files that are broken down by categories. If a store were specializing in say DVD's they would only download the DVD text file. The process would go something like this: (1) Step #1 - Download the data file via cURL or other method (2) Step #2 - Parse the data file and insert into temporary table (3) Step #3 - Sync the temp table with current catalog (using item number to model #) (4) Step #4 - Sync current catalog with temp table to activate / deactivate stock items The other method is with direct XML data requests. Of course using this you'll have to contend with network latency and other issues but can be implemented without the need to use osC as a platform. I would recommend caching the data return for faster performance and lower bandwidth utilization. Have fun!
osclover Posted April 8, 2006 Author Posted April 8, 2006 There are 2 methods of data access through Overstock.com. The first is raw delimited files that are broken down by categories. If a store were specializing in say DVD's they would only download the DVD text file. The process would go something like this: (1) Step #1 - Download the data file via cURL or other method I don't know cURL; what are the other methods? (2) Step #2 - Parse the data file and insert into temporary table What does parsing means? :blush: 3) Step #3 - Sync the temp table with current catalog (using item number to model #) How can one sync it? Like what does it mean? (4) Step #4 - Sync current catalog with temp table to activate / deactivate stock items The other method is with direct XML data requests. Of course using this you'll have to contend with network latency and other issues but can be implemented without the need to use osC as a platform. I would recommend caching the data return for faster performance and lower bandwidth utilization. I've basic PHP skills and no XML skills. Are there any ready-made XML codes available in either the osCommerce contribution section or somewhere else to enable me do this second method? If not would it be easy for me to develop such a code? I also read somewhere that I need to install EasyPopulate and then (perhaps manually) enter the contents of the CSV file via EasyPopulate into my osCommerce store. Your thoughts on this please... Thankyou,
Guest Posted May 17, 2006 Posted May 17, 2006 Sure...it's actually rather easy. (1) Step #1 - Download the data file via cURL or other method (2) Step #2 - Parse the data file and insert into temporary table (3) Step #3 - Sync the temp table with current catalog (using item number to model #) (4) Step #4 - Sync current catalog with temp table to activate / deactivate stock items Have fun! Yeah of course now you put it like that its sounds too easy. lol if the guy knew about parsing and syncing he wouldnt be asking how he could go about it in the first place... I think hes after a little bit more detail in how he can accomplish it.
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