Best Practice Is? Our Cs-Cart Website Will The Vendor For Other Websites

We are a manufacturer and sell to dealers (B2B). Our new CS-Cart website is for now set as 'catalog' function until we figure out how to best set-it up for B2B sales.



In addition, many of our dealers have their own websites/webshops and they want to import from our website our product information, preferably with daily price and inventory information. The problem is that each dealers uses a different platform, technology, etc…



So I'm looking for some 'best practice' insights with how to set this up. My initial thoughts are:

  1. to export from CS-Cart all the relevant data into an XML file. (1x - 2x daily)
  2. Locate this XML somewhere
  3. Have the dealers pick it up through FTP or …
  4. Repeat every day



    Or this is naive thinking and there's a much better solution?



    If anybody has experience I would love to hear about it!



    Thank you in advance

    Olof

Why aren't you using the api? That's what is for.

Dear Olof,



By default the Cs-Cart can put the data in csv - add-on data feeds, except the standard export. Or you may use API as EZ said.



You just need to define what format is better for your dealers. Check google data feeds About feeds - Google Merchant Center Help

But there is no the field amount.



In any case the modification is required.



Please contact us, using the link in the signature and our developer will explain you all details.



Best regards, Alt-team.

I agree with tbirnseth, API is a good choice. You can find more info here:



http://docs.cs-cart.com/4.2.x/api/index.html

Thank you all for replying.



What I failed to mention in my first post is that we use Product Options, Variants and Option Combinations.

Yes, I did look at the API and after your reply I looked at it again, this time in detail. But if I understand the API info correctly, it is not set-up to handle options, variants and option combinations? Or at least it is not mentioned here: http://docs.cs-cart…s/products.html



However, I also read the Ebay-synchronization thread, and there (after many months of trying…) it now is possible to export options & variants. My assumption is that this Ebay-add-on is based on similar technology as the API.



Alt-Team: thank you for the other option. I would prefer API but I also suspect that some our less technology-oriented dealers might prefer the import/export option. to be continued

[quote name='Olof' timestamp='1418987247' post='200348']

Thank you all for replying.



What I failed to mention in my first post is that we use Product Options, Variants and Option Combinations.

Yes, I did look at the API and after your reply I looked at it again, this time in detail. But if I understand the API info correctly, it is not set-up to handle options, variants and option combinations? Or at least it is not mentioned here: http://docs.cs-cart…s/products.html



However, I also read the Ebay-synchronization thread, and there (after many months of trying…) it now is possible to export options & variants. My assumption is that this Ebay-add-on is based on similar technology as the API.



Alt-Team: thank you for the other option. I would prefer API but I also suspect that some our less technology-oriented dealers might prefer the import/export option. to be continued

[/quote]



You can receive options if you use products API request in the following format:


http://domain.com/api/products?get_options=true



instead of



http://domain.com/api/products




Unfortunately it does not allow to get combinations. But the API is easy customizable. If you need help with this, feel free to contact us using the link from my signature.



Thanks.

We will probably wait for version 4.3.1 to come out. There´s apparantly some work being done around options and variants



[url=“Api And Access To Products Combinations Stock Value... - Developers' Corner - CS-Cart Community Forums”]Api And Access To Products Combinations Stock Value... - Developers' Corner - CS-Cart Community Forums

[quote name='Olof' timestamp='1419003244' post='200373']

We will probably wait for version 4.3.1 to come out. There´s apparantly some work being done around options and variants



http://forum.cs-cart…__fromsearch__1

[/quote]



Thank you for the information you provided us with