Template Data Feed exports your MIVA Merchant product data in the file formats required for multiple data feed submissions for inclusion in their ecommerce search directories and shopping portals. This MIVA Merchant plugin module works with both MMUI and OpenUI. No mmui.mv edits required. Like our other modules, this module is licensed by domain, so if you have multiple stores in a single domain, you only need one license for all the stores in that domain. This module is for MIVA Merchant 4.14-4.2x. We also have the corresponding module for 5.x version of Merchant.
This data feed plugin module creates the datafeed flat file directly from your admin
Frequent, no hassle submissions keep your data current
Eliminates the need to copy product and category databases from the server to your PC to produce a flat file export with software such as MS Excel
Uses your data as it exists within admin at the moment it is run
Exclude/include export of specific products (by code, price, weight)
Control over category insertion
Exclude/include export from specific categories
Include a table for each export that matches your category codes to the shopping index's category system (no need to edit data into each product's custom fields to hold the shopping index category)
If you are using MIVA's custom fields module, the additional field data can be used to populate additional fields and/or added to the description. It can be used in Merchant versions 4.14 and newer. No need to purchase an additional fields module since the customfld.mvc module is free.
Removes html from your product descriptions
Included in the module are features to eliminate timeouts when generating the data feed export of large numbers of products
Exports to your documents directory rather than your data directory for ease of capture and transmittal
You can create directory style and search friendly links in the feed to match those in your store
Template layout allows you to set the product data in the order you want it using tokens to dynamically insert the data at the position you want it
You can even create xml feeds or list your specials in a specific category for RSS output by this module
In Merchant 4.14-4.2x with OpenUI, you have the additional option of parsing OpenUI tokens in the product descriptions if they can be parsed in admin (many can but some may not)
The module comes with three (Froogle, Yahoo, Shopzilla) formats already configured
You can create more based on your search index's specifications fairly easy.
Minor changes are needed for your url or search friendly links
You'll can create custom product fields and assign values in them for the Shopzilla, Yahoo and many other feeds to meet their additional data needs
Many ecommerce search services are not free, so you'll need to create accounts and pay applicable fees prior to feed submissions (Froogle is free)
You can even use this module to submit bulk uploads to the free Google Base which lets you define the columns you are going to submit by using the tokens available in the module
I put several feeds on my site as example output. Contact me for the urls if you want to see them. They demonstrate some of the features:
Rearrange fields to fit the format of the shopping search index
Include custom fields not found in the standard MIVA Merchant products database (year, actors, director, etc.)
Include category matching so if the index uses a different or additional categorization, you can meet their requirements (Yahoo uses your category and theirs, Shopzilla has their own category ID system)
Steps
Apply to the search directory, e.g. Froogle, Yahoo, Shopzilla, and others to be included in their program
Install this module and run it
FTP/upload resulting flat file to the applicable search indexes
