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System Questions

How reliable is this service?

Our submission technology has been running continuously since early 2003, just after Froogle's inception in late 2002. We process millions of listings each day. Submissions run every morning and throughout the day as product information changes. Our system is available 24/7 to process data feed submissions on-demand. Our secure, dedicated hosting is provided by Pair Networks.

Custom Import and Google Feed Conversion

Our software can import data from your product catalog in almost any format. We can set up a Custom feed that can import from the data sources listed below. Your feed will include all of the features of our data feed service.

Request a Free Custom Feed Programming Quote
(Please include links to your product catalog and/or inventory files.)

  • Flat file format
    • Tab-delimited text file (.txt)
    • Comma-separated text file (.csv)
    • Pipe-delimited text file (.txt)
    • Fixed-width text file (.txt)
    • CSV or TXT feed files for other shopping engines
    • Any delimiter, enclosure, or escape character
  • XML Format
    • Google Atom XML files
    • Generic inventory or catalog XML files
  • Excel Format
    • Excel 2003 XML format (.xml)
    • Excel 2007 .xlsx file format (Office 2003)
    • Excel 5 (BIFF) .xls file format (Office 95)
    • Symbolic LinK (SYLK) .slk file format
    • OpenOffice Calc .ods file format
  • PC/UNIX/Mac file formats
  • UTF-8, ANSI, and other character sets
  • Automatic duplicate record handling

Please refer to our Integration Guide for best practices on how to develop an export routine for your website or store platform.

What shopping price comparison engines does your system submit to?

We now support a multitude of engines and can easily support more. Please see Data Feeds For Shopping Channels for a list of supported engines.

I received a Data Feed Error Notice but my FTP settings are correct.

If your FTP settings were previously working, then you can generally ignore the emailed notice about the failed FTP attempt. The FTP servers are relatively unreliable, and often will fail to accept a login even though a correct user name and password are supplied. Our automated system makes multiple attempts when it encounters an FTP error. Our system will email you if all the attempts fail. This is a relatively common occurrence with all the shopping engines.

To view the historical results of processing tasks, just go to "Manage Feed > View Results". You can quickly spot one-time errors there. To test your FTP settings, simply click the "Manage Feed > Test Feed Settings" link. If you see "success", then the error was a temporary one and can be ignored.

Generally, you can ignore the error and simply let the system retry on the next scheduled submission. However, if you want to refresh your product listings immediately, just resubmit your data feed manually.

Available Feed Scheduling Options: How often can I submit my feed?

Standard Feed Scheduling Options

The Standard feed plan has the following feed scheduling options included at no extra charge.

  • Daily (or Daily Plus) - Strongly recommended for all feeds
  • Triweekly - Mon/Wed/Fri
  • Biweekly - Tue/Sat
  • Weekly - Sundays
  • Monthly - 1st of month
  • Never - Disabled

Recommended Option

Daily (or Daily Plus for Turbify Stores) is recommended for all feeds for these reasons:

  • There are no extra charges for Daily (or Daily Plus) submission.
  • Ranking in search engines is maintained by keeping the feed fresh based on the last uploaded date, even if nothing has changed.
  • Issues with the feed are detected sooner.

Time of Day When Feeds Run

Feeds run in the overnight hours, approximately 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM Eastern time zone. In the case of a missed update (e.g. due to a widespread system issue), the feeds may be resubmitted during the daytime hours. You can view feed update history on the Manage Feed > View Feed Results page in your account.

See below for the 'Custom' scheduling option, which is available for an additional charge.

Custom Feed Scheduling Options

The Custom feed plan has the following feed scheduling options included at no extra charge. This scheduling option is available for Standard feeds for an additional charge of $3.00 per month.

  • Multiple times per day, up to Hourly*
  • At specific times of the day
  • On specific days of the week or month

* The 'Hourly' update may be limited for very large feeds, e.g. > 500,000 SKUs, due to the run time.

Send us your requirements and we can add the 'Custom' schedule option to your feed. There is no setup fee or commitment, and you can remove the option by simply emailing us.

High-Frequency / Real-Time Scheduling

Feed tasks are put into a background task queue, and run on a 'best effort' basis. During times of high system load, feed tasks could be delayed due to the size of the queue. The normal background queue is not suitable for feeds that need to run reliably at a set time, or at a high frequency.

A separate real-time queue is available for feeds with more demanding requirements. Please contact us for high-frequency and/or real-time scheduling options and pricing.

Manual Feed Updates

You can submit or refresh the feeds anytime via your account from the Tasks > Submit a Task page, in one button click.

There are no restrictions on when or how often you submit these tasks, and no extra charges.

Tasks submitted manually go into the 'user queue', which takes priority over any background tasks running on the system.

Related

What FTP settings can be configured?

You can configure your data feed to upload to any FTP server. On the Modify Settings page, configure the FTP server, username, and password. Use the Advanced Settings page to configure the port, initial directory, and mode (port/passive).

Why do you use insecure FTP instead of SFTP to upload the feeds?

We primarily use FTP uploads because most shopping engines only support FTP at this time. Furthermore, the data that is in the feed files is data that is publicly available from your product pages, so it is not private or proprietary information. The information does not need to be secure or encrypted.

We fully support SFTP (FTP via SSH), along with other upload methods such as FTP over SSL (FTP/S) and Amazon S3. These can be enabled upon requests.

Google Merchant Center now requires SFTP uploads, so that is enabled by default on all Google Feed Templates.

How do I change the display URL of my products?

Our feeds include a product URL for each item. You can customize these URLs by changing the Display URL setting in your data feed. Here are some of the reasons why you may want to customize the product links:

  • Add tracking codes for Google Analytics, Yahoo Analytics, etc.
  • Use the product URL from a custom field in your store catalog
  • Change the domain name of the URLs
  • Convert a non-www domain to a www domain
  • Add your own, custom tracking codes
  • Convert a file name to a full URL with domain name

To change the setting, please follow the steps below and contact us if you need assistance:

  1. From the Manage Feed > Define Fields page, look for the appropriate Product URL or link field, which will have a Display URL parameter.
  2. Click Edit for the field and follow the instructions on the page.
How do I set up feeds to the shopping engines?

Below is an overview of the steps required to set up data feeds to the various shopping engines.

  1. Check our Supported Feeds page to see if we support the shopping engine.
  2. Click the 'Merchants' link there, and sign up for a merchant account with the shopping engine. (Please contact us if we do not support a particular site.)
  3. You may have to make a minimum purchase or meet other requirements of the shopping engine.
  4. Once your merchant account is approved, check our Support page for feed setup instructions for the engine, if available.
  5. Add the feed to your Aten account from 'My Account > Add Feed', configure any fields as needed, and then run your first submission.
  6. Contact the shopping engine or check your merchant account dashboard to see if the feed was processed correctly.

If you get stuck on any step, feel free to contact us. If you would like optimization/set-up assistance, you can submit an Express Setup Request, and we take care of the feed setup. You would still be responsible for obtaining the merchant account, configuring your merchant account, managing bids, etc.

What is the static IP address of the server?

The static IP address of our server is:

23.111.149.90

This is the origin IP from which data feed files are uploaded. A few shopping engines, such as ShareASale, require this IP address for restricting access to upload to their FTP server. If you have IP restrictions on your website or firewall, you can white-list this IP.

Quantity / bulk pricing and minimum quantity / unit pricing

Quantity / Bulk Pricing

Products sold in bulk:
Submit the price for the minimum number of products that you require a user to purchase.

Source: Product data specification : price: Definition

Based on the above, it follows that:

  • You can not submit the discounted price for a bulk quantity.
  • You can not submit the price for a single item if a minimum purchase greater than one is required.

Google provides no mechanism to submit bulk quantity pricing discounts, so you must submit the price for the lowest purchasable quantity.

Our system always submits the lowest of the regular price or sale price. If this price corresponds to the total price for the minimum purchase quantity, then there is no issue.

However, if the price is for a single item, and there is a minimum purchase requirement, then we can program the feed to multiply the price times the minimum purchase quantity in your catalog

We can also program the unit_pricing_measure and unit_pricing_base_measure fields.

For example, if you sell stationary in packs of 12, we can set unit_pricing_measure = 12 ct and unit_pricing_base_measure = 1 ct. If the price of the 12-pack is $12, then using this information, Google can display the price as $1.00 per ct.

Why do I see the message, "Store information no longer available"?

Sometimes, you may see the message, 'Store information no longer available', for one or more tasks in the "View Tasks" page. You will see this message when you have recently deleted a feed from your account. Deleting the feed deletes all the feed settings and results, but the task history will be preserved in your account. The tasks and messages will drop off the page after seven days.

How to update the ASPDNSF product export code.
  1. Go to Free Product Data Exporter for AspDotNetStoreFront
  2. Enter your password (This can be found in the "URL of CSV Data" setting on the "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" page.)
  3. Check the box to accept license agreement
  4. Download code file 1 of 2
  5. Download code file 2 of 2
  6. Replace the current files in your server's web root folder with the new files
  7. Ensure that the permissions are set correctly on the files
Resolving character encoding issues in your data feed.

In Google Merchant Center, you may see an error that says:

Encoding problem in attribute: description - Some of the characters in your items seem to be invalid. Please verify all the characters in your feed are valid for your selected encoding.

To resolve this, take the following steps.

  1. Verify that your data feed's "Encoding" setting in Google Merchant Center is set to "UTF-8".
  2. In your product descriptions and titles, replace the Windows characters listed below with the corresponding HTML entities.
    If you see this in your store then, replace it with this
    • •
    ” ”
    “ “
    ’ ’
    ‘ ‘
    ™ ™
    ® ®
    ° °
  3. If you still have encoding issues, copy and paste the raw description from your store's edit product page into the Javascript Count Character Occurrences Online tool. Click the Display/Update Counts button, and look for non-standard character in the list. Remove non-standard characters from the description.

Discussion

Microsoft uses a proprietary encoding (called CP-1252) for the bullet symbol and some other special characters, whereas most websites and data feeds use UTF-8. When you copy-paste from a Microsoft product into a website, some characters may appear as junk. Our system generates data feeds in the UTF-8 character encoding, which many shopping engines now require.

How to integrate your shopping cart with our data feed engine

Our data feed engine can integrate with your shopping cart if it provides a source data feed file that meets the following technical requirements and specifications.

  • What to Include: Any and all item data should be exported (except sensitive information like cost, supplier name, etc.). See below for details.
  • Format: product data export file in flat-file format (e.g. tab-delimited, pipe-delimited, comma-separated; XML is also supported)
  • Preferred Format: Excel-compatible CSV preferred - comma-separated, double-quotes enclosure, and double-quote escape character, CR/LF or LF as line separator.
  • Header: The first line must be a header that describes the column names.
  • Column names can be anything, in any order. They can be renamed or rearranged at any time. There is no restriction.
  • Location: on a fixed/unchanging HTTP or FTP URL
  • Unbuffered: start sending data immediately without long delays
  • Headers: include an accurate, last-modified HTTP header. This is optional and not important
  • Submit one line for each variant, if applicable.
  • There is no size limit
  • Export must deliver the data as fast as possible (finish within 30 minutes)
  • Compress the file for improved performance and reliability. You can use any common compression format, like zip, gzip, etc. The archive file and contents can be named anything. All the files in the archive will be decompressed and merged verbatim into a single file.

Once you have prepared the above, all you would provide us is the link to the file and then we would set up your data feeds. We can also provide you with an FTP location where you can upload the file. Please contact us for a quote. Example URLs:

http://www.store.com/data-export.csv
ftp://user:password@ftp.store.com/data-export.csv

Content Guidelines

  • The product must be purchasable online from your website.
  • The following product information is recommended:
    • unique identifier (SKU, product ID, product code, etc.)
    • non-zero price
    • image URL, link, file name, or path
    • product URL, link, file name, or path
    • product name or title
    • product description or caption
    • product condition (new, used, or refurbished)
    • product availability (in stock, out of stock, etc.)
    • UPC (universal product code), EAN, or ISBN (if available)
    • manufacturer part number (MPN)
    • brand (or manufacturer)
Set Up Instructions for Oodle Data Feed (Backfill Program)

These are the instructions to add a feed for Oodle's free backfill data feed program. The backfill program is limited to 15,000 items, and has numerous other restrictions.

Add Data Feed

  1. Go to the My Account > Add Feed.
  2. Select the Oodle Template and click Add.
  3. Enter your store source information and click Update. Leave FTP settings blank.
  4. Go to the Manage Feed > Define Fields.
  5. Edit the 'category', 'address', 'city', 'state', and 'zip_code' fields and enter an appropriate Default Value for each.
  6. Go to Tasks > Submit a Task and click Refresh.
  7. Go to Manage Feed > Product List and note the item count.
  8. Go to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File and copy the File URL.

Set up Oodle Account

  1. Go to the Oodle Submit Feed page.
  2. Select Stuff as the Feed Category.
  3. Enter the Number of Listings in Your Feed that you noted above.
  4. Select Delimited Text as the File Format.
  5. Select CSV as the File Delimiter.
  6. Select Via URL as the Transfer Mechanism.
  7. Paste the File URL that you copied above into the Full URL of the feed box, and hen click Test Feed. You should see a message "Feed looks good. Please enter contact information below and click Submit. All fields are required. " at the top of the page.
  8. Fill in the remaining information in Step 2: Contact Information and Step 3: Your Website Information and then click Submit.
  9. The feed setup is complete. You should see a message saying "Thank you for submitting your feed request. You should receive an automated e-mail response shortly and then our Feed Management team will follow-up with your request.".
  10. Oodle will not provide technical support for the backfill program. But if you have questions, you can contact them via the Oodle Classifieds - Help Contact Form.
Can non-US merchants or sellers list products in the shopping engines?

In general, the US-based shopping engines only allow merchants based in the US.

Please contact the shopping search engine or refer to their terms and conditions to determine if they allow non-US based sellers.

We act as an intermediary, so merchant policies would still apply to you. While we can set up feeds for your store, you are ultimately responsible for determining if your listings are acceptable to the shopping website.

Item Error and Warning Help
id missing
'id' is a required attribute and should be set to the unique identifier, SKU, or product ID of the product.
title missing
'title' is a required attribute and should be set to the product name.
description missing
'description' is a required attribute and should be set to the product description.
image_link missing
'image_link' is a required attribute and should be set to the main product image URL.
invalid image_link
'image_link' must be a valid image URL starting with 'http'
yahoo error image detected
Yahoo store error-img.gif was detected
Related: Error images (all red square images) in Turbify (Yahoo) Store feeds
magento no_selection image detected
Magento product/no_selection image was detected, which is not a valid image URL.
volusion nophoto.gif image detected
Volusion nophoto.gif image was detected, which is not a valid image URL.
link missing
'link' is a required attribute and should be set to the product URL.
invalid link
'link' must be a valid product URL starting with 'http'
price missing
'price' is a required attribute and should be set to the product selling price.
Related: Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?
price is zero
Items with zero price are not allowed.
Related: Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?
zero sale price detected
Items with zero sale price are not allowed.
Related: Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?
invalid condition
'condition' must be one of the following values: 'new', 'used', or 'refurbished'
Related: Configuring the 'condition' attribute for Google feeds.
invalid availability
'availability' must be one of the following values: 'in stock', 'out of stock', 'backorder', or 'preorder'
Related: How to configure Google Shopping Availability attribute
invalid online_only
'online_only' must be one of the following values: 'y', 'n', or ''
invalid age_group
'age_group' must be one of the following values: 'adult', 'kids', 'toddler', 'infant', 'newborn' or ''
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)
invalid gender
'gender' must be one of the following values: 'male', 'female', 'unisex', or ''
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)
2 of 3 of brand/MPN/GTIN are required
A minimum of two of the three identifier fields (brand, MPN, and GTIN) must be filled in with properly formatted and factually correct data.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
invalid UPC
UPC must always be 12 numeric digits. Use leading zeros if needed.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
invalid GTIN
GTIN must be a valid UPC, JAN, EAN, or ISBN.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
invalid JAN
JAN must be 8 or 13 numeric digits.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
invalid EAN
EAN must be 8, 13, or 14 numeric digits.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
invalid ISBN
ISBN must be 10 or 13 numeric digits, or 9 numeric digits followed by an 'X'.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
invalid MPN
MPN must be three or more characters.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
prohibited text '{x}' found in {x}
The specified keyword is not allowed in any field and will cause the item to be disapproved.
Related: Items disapproved due to shipping terms in the product description
10000 character limit exceeded in {x}
Each attribute may only have up to 10,000 characters.
age_group required for apparel items
Age_group must be set to one of the following values for apparel items: 'adult', 'kids', 'toddler', 'infant', or 'newborn'.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)
gender required for apparel items
Gender must be set to one of the following values for apparel items: 'male', 'female', or 'unisex'.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)
invalid google_product_category
'google_product_category' must be one of the official categories from the Google taxonomy. Only one category can be specified. Spacing is important, but capitalization is not. You must use the 'Text' format, either with or without double-quotes.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes
id too long
'id' must be 50 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
link too long
'link' must be 2000 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
mobile_link too long
'mobile_link' must be 2000 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
image_link too long
'image_link' must be 2000 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
additional_image_link too long
'additional_image_link' must be 2000 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
brand too long
'brand' must be 70 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
mpn too long
'mpn' must be 70 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
gtin too long
'gtin' must be 50 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
item_group_id too long
'item_group_id' must be 50 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
custom_label_0 too long
'custom_label_0' must be 100 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
custom_label_1 too long
'custom_label_1' must be 100 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
custom_label_2 too long
'custom_label_2' must be 100 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
custom_label_3 too long
'custom_label_3' must be 100 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
custom_label_4 too long
'custom_label_4' must be 100 characters or less.
Related: Google Feed Warning: Value too long in attribute: id
description less than 15 characters
The description is recommended to be at least 15 characters long.
title over 150 characters
The title is over 150 characters long.
Related: Title Length for SEO: Importance of the 70 character limit for Google
missing google_product_category
Google_product_category is a strongly recommended field.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes
outdated google_product_category
The google_product_category is outdated. Please use a category from the latest official taxonomy.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes
missing product_type
Product type is a recommended field. It is not required. Set a Default Value if desired by going to Manage Feed > Define Fields and editing the field.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes
color required for apparel items
A 'color' value is required for all items in Apparel & Accessories. The color must be the dominant color of the pictured item.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)
invalid identifier_exists
'identifier_exists' must be one of the following values: 'true', 'false', 'yes', 'no', or ''
identifier_exists false but identifiers provided
When a minimum of two of the three identifier fields (brand, MPN, and GTIN) are provided, 'identifier_exists' may not be 'false'.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
size required for clothing and shoes
A 'size' value is required for items in Apparel & Accessories > Clothing and Apparel & Accessories > Shoes. Specify the size of the pictured item, or the most common size of the item.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)
GTIN missing for designated brand
The brand is designated to require a GTIN.
Related: Configuring product identifiers Brand, MPN, and GTIN/UPC Fields
Submitting duplicate copy of store to shopping engines is not allowed

All of the major comparison shopping engines have policies that prohibit merchants from submitting the same product listing multiple times via different stores under the same ownership. If they were to allow it, then the shopping engines would be full of spam and this would create a poor experience for shoppers.

Google Shopping enforces this policy by disapproving your listings without notice or explanation. Your account could be suspended in its entirety.

Using the Google network to gain an unfair traffic advantage in Shopping campaigns.
Examples: ... duplicate listings
(Google Shoppingn Policies - Abuse of the network)
Avoid submitting duplicate websites containing similar content to avoid account disapproval. Learn more about our policies on duplicate content.
(Set up a multi-client account)

Bing Shopping enforces this policy during the merchant review period when you first add your store to their merchant account. Your account will never be activated.

We have no control over feed disapproval by shopping engines, and provide no refunds of any kind due to feed disapproval due to policy violations, whether the reason for the disapproval is known or not.

We do not advise of and strongly discourage any workarounds for submitting listings multiple times via different stores or merchant accounts.

The only workaround we support is via product filtering and duplicate exclusion techniques. We can submit unique subsets of your products from each store, thereby ensuring that each product is only listed once.

For example, suppose Store A and Store B contain the same 200 items. We can submit 100 in the feed for Store A, and the other 100 in the feed for Store B. This will send some traffic to each store, and comply with Google policies.

BigCartel to Google Shopping Data Feed

We support BigCartel data feeds to the shopping search engines.

Use your JSON store export URL in the feed settings. It will look like this: http://api.bigcartel.com/storename/products.json

Please note that the BigCartel product export does not contain UPC, Google Product Category, or Manufacturer Part Number fields. If you need that information submitted in your feed, you will have to embed that information in the product description. We recommend embedding it using microdata format. You can copy/paste the HTML code below:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product"
    style="display:none;">
<span itemprop="googleProductCategory">
  Electronics > Communications > Telephony</span>
<span itemprop="model">ME305LL/A</span>
<span itemprop="gtin13">0885909727445</span>
<div itemprop="brand" itemscope
     itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
  <span itemprop="name">Apple</span>
</div>
</div>

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like a BigCartel feed set up for you.

CSCart data feed to Google Shopping Setup Instructions

We now support data feeds for CSCart to Google Shopping, Bing Shopping, Facebook Product Ads, Pinterest, Wholesale Central, Shareasale, etc.

For setup, you will need to add a new Data Feed in your control panel, and configure it to run automatically using cron. This will allow our system access to your product data. See below for setup instructions.

Please contact us if you are interested and we can provide further assistance.

Data feeds Add-On for CS-Cart

  1. Go to Add-ons > Manage Add-ons > CS-Cart
  2. Click Install or Activate for the Data feeds add-on.
  3. Click the Data feeds add-on, or continue to the next section.

For more details, refer to the CS Cart Manual pages on Data Feeds and How To: Set Up the Data Feeds Add-on.

Data Feed Settings

  1. Go to Add-ons > Data feeds in your CS Cart control panel.
    It may also be under Administration > Export data > Data feeds
  2. Click the plus icon to add a new Data feed.
  3. Enter the following settings on the General tab:
    Layouts
    general_data_feeds
    Data feed name
    catalog.csv
    File name
    catalog.csv
    Enclosure
    " (double-quote character)
    Product type:
    Leave unselected
    Language
    English
    Images directory
    exim/backup/images/
    Price decimal separator
    . (period character)
    Category delimiter
    > (right angle bracket character)
    Features delimiter
    , (comma character)
    Directory for the files of downloadable products
    exim/backup/downloads/
    CSV delimiter
    Comma
    Exclude disabled products
    Check the box
    Status
    Active
    Server directory
    (leave blank)
    FTP server
    ftp.atensoftware.com
    FTP username and password
    (contact us)
    Export by cron to:
    FTP
  4. Enter the following settings on the Exported items tab:
    Categories
    Remove all categories until it says Any category
    Products
    Remove all products until it says Any product
  5. On the Fields mapping tab, add each field that may contain useful information using this procedure:
    1. Click the icon to add a field
    2. Select the next Field type
    3. Type in the Field type name in all lower case in the Field name box
    4. Leave Pos column blank
    5. Repeat for each field in the list. Recommend to click Save as you progress to save your work.
  6. Click Save to save the export

Crontab Scheduled Export Setup

You will need the username/login for SSH access to the web server to complete these steps. You can also can forward the instructions below to the web hosting company.

  1. Download PuTTY or you can use any other SSH client
  2. Run PuTTY and log into the server
  3. Type export EDITOR=nano and press Enter
  4. Type crontab -e and press Enter
  5. Go to your store admin, select the data feed you created above, go to the General settings tab, and look under the Export by cron to line. Copy the line to your clipboard.
  6. Paste the command onto a blank line into nano, with a prefix of 0 23 * * *. It should look something like this, all on one line:
    0 23 * * * php /path/to/cart/admin.php --dispatch=exim.cron_export --cron_password=MYPASS --switch_company_id=0
    Remember to change /path/to/cart/ to the correct path for your server.
    The above will run the export at 11 PM local time of your server.
  7. Press CTRL+O and then Enter to save changes
  8. Press CTRL+X to exit the nano text editor
osCommerce to Google Shopping Data Feed

We support osCommerce data feeds to the shopping search engines. We support most versions of osCommerce, including osCommerce 2.2, osCommerce 2.3.x, and CRE Loaded.

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like a osCommerce feed set up for you.

How to set minimum required listings for the Feed Safeguard feature

Each feed has a Minimum Listing Requirement setting that you can set on the Advanced Feed Settings page. By default it is set to zero, and we recommend setting it to around 60-80% of your active listings count.

The Feed Safeguard will email you and stop the feed from being uploaded (or written to the Feed File URL) if the system detects that the number of listings is too low. The purpose of this is to prevent temporary error conditions from causing listings to be inadvertently deleted.

When you receive the email notice, you can either lower the Minimum Required Listings setting to allow a smaller feed to be generated, or you can contact us to troubleshoot the feed.

Here are the detailed steps for enabling or disabling this feature:

  1. Go to My Account.
  2. Click Manage for the desired feed.
  3. Make a note of the unfiltered listing count.
  4. Click Advanced Feed Settings.
  5. To enable the Feed Safeguard feature, enter a number in the Minimum Listing Requirement setting that is somewhat less than the unfiltered listing count. You will want to set it low enough such that normal changes to your store do not trigger the safeguard.
  6. If you want to disable the Feed Safeguard feature instead, enter zero in the Minimum Listing Requirement setting.
  7. Click the Update button to save the settings.

Feed Safeguard settings are entirely separate from Feed Monitoring for Google Shopping settings.

11 Main Product Data Feed

We now offer product data feeds to 11 Main.

Our 11 Main product data feed follows the latest 11 Main template and feed specifications, and includes all your product images. We refresh the feed with your latest product catalog on a daily basis, with automatic adding, updating, and deleting of items. We can also submit your product variations of size and color, with proper formatting of parent and child rows.

The 11 Main product data feeds are currently in beta and require a Custom feed, so please contact us for information on setting one up.

WooCommerce Data Feed Service (WordPress Shop)

We provide support for WooCommerce/Wordpress product data feeds to Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Pinterest Product Ads!

We fetch your product and variation data directly using the WooCommerce API, so there is no need to install any third-party extensions or perform any manual steps.

We can submit your feed to all major shopping engines. Please contact us if you do not find a template for your shopping channel.

WooCommerce is a freely available eCommerce plugin that enables shop facilities on your WordPress website.

To get started, simply complete the steps below.

REST API Setup Instructions

  1. Log into your WooCommerce admin
  2. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > REST API
  3. Click the Add Key button
  4. Enter the following:
    Description: atensoftware
    User: Select your user or create a user named 'atensoftware' in a separate tab
    Permissions: Read
  5. Click the Generate API key button
  6. Enter the Consumer key and Consumer secret on the Modify Settings page of your feed.

At this point, you can use a Setup guide from our Support section, or submit an Express Setup Request where we set up and optimize the feed for you.

Kibo Commerce Data Feed Support

We currently support KiboCommerce data feeds to Google Shopping, Bing Shopping, etc. We can connect to your store's product catalog using the Mozu API. If you would like us to set up your feeds, please contact us for more details.

How do I add fields or attributes to my data feed?

These instructions describe how to add fields or attributes to your data feed.

  1. Go to Manage Feed > Define Fields.
  2. Select Public | Catalog Field in the Add Field drop-down box, and click Add to go to the Add or Modify Field page.
  3. Enter the name of the field as you want it to appear in the feed in the Name box.
  4. If you have a Custom feed, select where you want the new field to be located in the Position drop-down box. The position defaults to the end of the feed. You can always move the field later from the Define Fields page.
  5. Leave the Default Value box blank. You can enter a value if you want something filled in automatically by our system when the value for the field in your catalog is blank.
  6. In the Field Name box, enter the name of the field from your catalog. You can also select it from the Available Fields drop-down box to auto-fill it.
  7. Select Enabled. If you select Disabled, the field will not be in the feed output file, but you can still view the data in our system and add filters on the field.
  8. Click Add to finish adding the field.
  9. Refresh the feed or resubmit the feed from the Manage Feed > Submit a Task page to generate a new feed file.

You can go to the Manage Feed > View Random Product to see a sample item listing and verify that the field showed up.

If you need HTML removed from the values, then select the Public | Catalog Field (HTML-stripped) field type.

Express Feed Setup Prerequisites Checklist

Platform-specific instructions

To give our system access to your store data, please refer to the Set up your Store Export Instructions.

Google Shopping Setup Prerequisites

Bing Ads Setup Prerequisites

  • Create a BingAds Account
  • Add a payment method in the Accounts & Billing
  • Under Tools > Bing Merchant Center, click Create a store and follow the instructions
  • Make sure your website URL is verified in Bing Webmaster Tools
OpenCart to Google Shopping Feed Setup Instructions

We can set up an OpenCart feed for your store to Google Shopping, Bing, etc. There is no way to set up this feed from your account at this time. Please provide us the information below and we can set up the feed for you.

Our system connects directly to your MySQL database to read the product data required for the feed. It does not require API access or any API plugin.

For additional security, we suggest to create a separate MySQL user with read-only permissions to the database, instead of sending the MySQL user/pass used by OpenCart.

Required Information

MySQL Database Name
Required
MySQL Server Host Name
Required
MySQL User Name
Required
MySQL Password
Required
Store URL
Required. Example is https://acmeproducts.com

Optional Information

If known, please send the following optional information. Otherwise, we can assign defaults and adjust the settings as needed.

MySQL Server Port
Default is 3306 if unspecified
Table prefix
Optional, since we can determine this for you.
Language ID
Default is "1" if unspecified
Store ID
Default is "0" if unspecified
Customer Group ID
Default is "1" if unspecified

One prerequisite is that you must ensure incoming connections to your MySQL database server are permitted from our server IP address of 23.111.149.90. You can send us the information above, and then we can let you know if there are any issues connecting to your MySQL database.

Pricefalls Setup Guide

Please complete the steps below to set up your feed for Pricefalls.

  1. Add a feed a Pricefalls feed for your platform from the Add Feed page in your account.
  2. Make sure to select the Pricefalls template. If you do not see it in the list, please let us know your store platform and we will add it.
  3. Configure the store source settings on the Modify Settings page for the feed by using the Store Source Setup instructions.
  4. Contact your Pricefalls account representative, and ask them to set up an FTP account for uploading your feed.
  5. Enter the FTP username and password onto the Modify Settings page for the feed.
Shopping Cart Migration Services

We do not offer migration services to move your store templates, product data, and images from one e-commerce platform to another.

We recommend Cart2Cart Shopping Cart Migration Services, which specializes in this type of service for a reasonable cost.

You can also check with your e-commerce platform, as they may have special offers to migrate your store.

Shift4Shop (3dcart) Product Data Feed to Google Shopping and More

We support Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart) data feeds to shopping engines.

You must set up a product export from your 3dcart store of all product data.

  1. Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager
  2. Go to Products > Product List
  3. Click the Export/Import button
  4. Under the Export section, expand the Products section
  5. Select the All Fields Export Set (Leave all drop-downs set to All)
  6. Click the Schedule Recurring button
  7. Select the settings listed below:
    • Enabled - checked
    • File Name - products (NOTE: do not include any file extension)
    • Run every - 1 hour
    • Starting at - 0:00:00
    • Action - Save File (Folder: assets/exports/)
  8. Click the Save button

If applicable, repeat the above steps for Product Options, and set the file name to productoptions.csv.

If applicable, repeat the above steps for Bulk Pricing, and set the file name to bulkpricing.csv.

After you set up the product export, you can set up the feed in your account using these instructions:

  1. Go to My Account > Add Feed
  2. Select the appropriate template and add the feed.
  3. Go to Manage Feed > Modify Settings
  4. Enter the Product Catalog URL as:
    http://www.yourstore.com/ assets/exports/allfields.csv
    Be sure to replace www.yourstore.com with your own store domain.

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like a 3dcart feed set up for you.

Shopbot.ca Data Feed Setup Guide

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like a Shopbot.ca feed set up for you.

Infrequent or one-time product feed set up instructions

If your store changes very infrequently — less than once per month — then you can just run the feed when the feed changes to save money.

The hosted feed file URL on our site expires after 30 days, and also, our feed billing stops automatically 30 days after the last activity on the feed. Refer to our billing policy for details.

To set this up, you will need a website (typically your store's files or images folder) where you can host the feed file. Once you have that arranged, then complete steps:

  1. Set the feed to 'Never' submit on the 'Modify Settings' page.
  2. Refresh the feed in your account.
  3. Download the feed file to your computer.
  4. Upload the feed file to your website.
  5. Note the URL where the feed file is on your website.
  6. Configure your destination merchant account (e.g. Google, Bing, Facebook, Pinterest) to fetch the feed file from the URL on your website. We recommend a daily refresh when given the option.

When your product information (especially availability and pricing) changes, and you need to update the feed, follow these steps:

  1. Purchase a minimum amount of credit in your account
  2. Refresh the feed
  3. Download the feed file
  4. Upload it to your website to the same location with the same file name

By setting it up this way, you would only pay for the months you use the feed, rather than all 12. Please contact us if you need assistance with setting this up.

'Smart' product category selection for product_type

Problem: Multiple merchant categories assigned to items

Google and other channels require a product_type to specify the merchant's category for each product.

Google recommends only one product_type be specified, so what happens when you have multiple categories assigned to an item?

To solve this problem, our optimized feeds calculate a field called 'aten_smart_product_category' based on your categories.

Solution: 'aten_smart_product_category' picks the best category

When an item is classified under multiple categories in your store, our system automatically selects the most appropriate category for use as the product_type.

If available for your store platform, the field will be named 'aten_smart_product_category' or something similar.

'aten_smart_product_category' will be mapped to 'product_type' on the Define Fields page, and also can be used for our Categorization Service.

How does it work?

The algorithm assigns a score to each merchant category based on the following criteria:

  • How many 'levels' are the path? (higher is better)
  • How many characters long is the category? (higher is better)
  • Several other proprietary checks reduce the score.

It then picks the highest scoring category.

Next, it applies a clean-up rule to remove text from the category that is irrelevant to product type, such as 'All', 'Sale', "Holiday', etc.

This proprietary scoring algorithm has been developed and refined over many years, and works well for almost all merchants. It does not use any artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

The rules can be tuned to for the specific needs of a merchant by demoting specific categories such that the other categories are picked instead. Please contact us if you require adjustments to the 'aten_smart_product_category' logic.

Pepperjam Product Feed Setup Instructions
  1. Log into your Pepperjam Network Merchant Account
  2. Go to Settings > Product Feed
  3. Enter the following settings:
    Update type: Automatic
    Feed URL: (Copy and paste your feed URL from My Account > Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File. It will look something like this: https://www.atensoftware.com/ p400_12345.php)
    Feed Type: Pepperjam Network Advanced Format
    Feed Delimiter: Tab
    Download Intervals: Every Day
  4. Click the Update Feed Settings button
  5. Check back the next day to review the Product Catalog Error Report
Do you support a Newegg Business data feed?

Unfortunately, at this time, we do not support data feeds to Newegg, so we can not list your items in the Newegg Marketplace Seller Portal.

However, we can provide a reliable, frequent product and inventory feed from your store to a multi-channel integrator. You can manage your marketplace listings, inventory, and orders using the multi-channel integrator. Below is a list of the integrators that are used by our customers:

  1. Channel Advisor
  2. Sellbrite
  3. SolidCommerce

Based on our experience, the above provide robust services to help you manage all aspects of your multi-channel marketplace listings.

Squarespace to Google Shopping Product Feed Setup Instructions

Get your Squarespace products listed in Google Shopping and Pinterest using our product data feed service! Refer to Pricing and Features for additional information.

To get started, generate an API key using the instructions below.

  1. Log into your Squarespace site
  2. In the left nav, click Settings > Advanced
  3. Click Developer API Keys
  4. Click the GENERATE KEY button
  5. In the dialog, enter Aten Software under KEY NAME
  6. Under PERMISSIONS, select the following two:
    Inventory API > Read Only
    Products API > Read Only
  7. Send us the key using the Secure Login and Password Form in your account

Squarespace feed support is in an early stage, so please contact us for next steps and assistance with the setup and optimization.

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