Formats
In order to be able to show your product listing to best effect to our customers around the world, Fruugo requires a product data feed. We need to retrieve this feed frequently to keep stock levels accurate and thereby improve the customer experience.
The method used to get product information into the Fruugo system is via a suitably constructed product data feed. This feed contains the information which the Fruugo system requires to be able to correctly display your products to the customer, correctly calculate the cost (including shipping and sales tax where appropriate) to shoppers in all of the Fruugo countries.
Formats
We support the use of either CSV (comma or semi-colon separated) or XML feed - both of which conform to the same field specification. These feeds should be generated by a feed script on a pre-defined schedule (at least daily but ideally more frequently) and the script publishing the output feed file to a static URL (http) from which our system can collect the file each time a new version has been published for automatic processing. We operate in this manner to ensure that the products remain consistently up to date - stock, prices etc.
There are only 11 mandatory fields in the Fruugo CSV and XML formats to ensure you can get up and running as soon as possible. The remaining fields, although not compulsory*, are there so that we can fine tune your experience to get you the most sales possible. Throughout this process the Fruugo Integration Team will be on hand to advise on submitting a feed that ensures your products are set-up correctly. *They may become compulsory dependent on the nature of your products.
CSV Feed Overview
CSV (comma-separated values) is a common, simple file format that is widely supported by consumer, business, and scientific applications. A CSV file consists of any number of records, separated by line breaks; each record consists of fields, separated by a character or string, most commonly a comma. All records have an identical sequence of fields.
A comma-separated values (CSV) file stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain-text form. Plain text means that the file is a sequence of characters. Among its most common uses is submitting data between programs.
In practice the term "CSV" refers to any file that:
- Is in “plain text” using a character set such as UTF-8.
- Consists of records (one record per line).
- With the records divided into fields separated by delimiters (typically a single reserved character such as comma, semicolon, or tab).
- Where every record has the same sequence of fields.
XML Feed Overview
(EXtensible Markup Language) is an open standard for describing data from the W3C. It is used for defining data elements on a Web page and business-to-business documents. XML uses a similar tag structure as HTML; however, whereas HTML defines how elements are displayed, XML defines what those elements contain. While HTML uses predefined tags, XML allows tags to be defined by the provider (Fruugo).
Therefore virtually any data items, such as "product" and "sales" can be identified, allowing Web pages to function like database records.
Simply, what is XML?
- XML stands for Extensible Markup Language.
- XML is a markup language much like HTML .
- XML was designed to carry data, not to display data.
- XML is designed to be self-descriptive