Yfifx is an online service for imporing products into your your Shopify store. Yfifx allows you to build your products database and updating prices and stocks for online Shopify stores. It is not only a tool for automatic processing of supplier feeds, but it has functions for repricing, products content update. yfifx is the best practices for working with Shopify's feeds of suppliers and competitors, price monitoring and content web scrapers etc.
Import feeds of any format
You will be able to import products from feeds of the following formats: csv,excel,xml,json and any of their options. In the user interface, you just need to specify the mapping of the columns / feeds and that's it!
These options are important because it will allow you to start working with new suppliers quickly and the wide set of options for feeds processing will help you to prepare data the best way.
You can Export products data in the following formats from your Shopify store
- CSV, Excel, XML, JSON
- API access
- Direct import/update/sync
Options for feeds import
- manual upload from PC
- web link (http)
- ftp
- email message
- dropbox
- google drive
- api
If you business is growing we believe that you have a lot of suppliers who share products info with you different ways. And for increasing frequency for products update at your store you need to automate products import from suppliers feeds.
Connect new suppliers to your shopify
- check wholesales prices
- increase the assortment
- work with dropshipping model
- change supplier prices
It will allow you to be different if compare with the other dropshipping players. When they need to spend 1 week to connect with new supplier you can do this job for 1-2 hours. It will increase your SEO positions for google.
Compare Products
- find the best supplier for each product
- check competitors prices
- manual and automatic functions for products matching
- compare similar products
If you sell the same product from different suppliers yfifx allows you to select the best price and the best supplier for each product. Agree that if you have dropshipping store you can publish the best price on your store - your clients will like it!
Price calculation
- by formulas
- RRP/MRP formulas
- only for products with availability
- filters by categories, brands, price ranges
- the ability to set manually
- suppliers priorities
- shipping costs
You always need to recalculate final prices for your products, yfifx allows you to save time for that. Define formulas/rules/filters for price changes once and it will work for you each time when yfifx starts your MainFeed update.
RRP support
- use RRP if exists
- sell cheaper than RRP
- sell above the RRP
If your supplies have RRP/MRP yfifx will take that into account when does repricing for your products.
If you do not want to get penalties for your dropshipping store you need to process RRP right way for all your products you sell.
But if you want to "play" with RRP prices and to sell higher or lower you can use specific functions for this at yfifx.
Updating prices and quantities
- fully automatic update
- update by all formulas
- set up once and forgot
- protection against dumping
Product content
- products with variants (combinatoins with options) are supported
- all complex options are supported
- import from other feeds
- functions to update the required products fields
Automatic processing of feeds
- starting the processing of feeds on a schedule
- automation of the chain of actions
- automatic download of feeds by links, from mail, by API
- automatic processing of imported feeds
Scheduled start
- all actions can be started automatically
- download feeds
- import new products
- update old products
- filtering by category
- loading new currency exchange rates
- updating prices taking into account the margin (according to all formulas)
- export data to the site
Competitors Price Monitoring
- compare prices
- web scraper will collect product prices
- import new data
- use to recalculate your prices
Product change history
For each feed
- shows new products
- shows disappeared products
- shows products where the quantity is changed
- shows products where the price is changed
- display of changes in graphs and tables
If it interesting to know what was changed at suppliers feed, where changed stocks, prices etc.
yfifx shows these changes.
If you want to start google AD campaign or facebook AD campaign for your store you can analyze product changes before and to take products what fit your criteria.
Shopify Price and Stocks analysis
- analysis of price changes
- analysis of changes in availability
- analysis of supplier's products
- analysis of competitor's products
We support Shopify CMS for products import / update / repricing dropshipping.
Shopify CSV and Excel import.
Import CSV and Exceli files into your Shopify store using Yfifx.com service!
Yfifx allows you to do full automation for import / update / sync data from any CSV files for your Shopify stores.
You can import any size of files: we tested that on 10GB size CSV.
How it works
1. You import products CSV AS IS to yfifx as supplier products without any changes.
2. You define margin rules for repricing.
3. You select all products or any subset of suppliers categories / products what you want to import to Shopify.
4. yfifx updates selected products with new prices at MainFEED.
5. Your MainFEED you can export to your Shopify store via API or direct SQL db calls or you can access data via API.
Products fields for CSV Shopify import
- SKU,ID,MPN,UPC,BARCODE,Ref etc,
- Price, SalePrice, OldPrice, Discount,
- Quantity/Stocks/Availability,
- Name,
- Categories,
- Manufacturer,
- Features,
- Options,Variants (Colors,Sizes etc),
- Dimensions: L x W x H, and Weight,
- Description,
- Images ,
- Url.
Import CSV files into your Shopify store via yfifx.com
yfifx allows you to do full automation for products update and sync from any CSV files for your Shopify stores.
You can add new suppliers CSV files itself or to ask us to do that for you by request.
Find below how it looks inside our software for Shopify.
Step 1 – Feed configuration for Shopify CSV import
There are several options exist how to upload CSV file
— from PC
— from URL, FTP, Dropbox, Google sheets etc.
— from Email
— sometimes it is necessary to download file from supplier website under client's login & password (it is possible but will require custom development)
Video instructions – creating a supplier's feed and uploading a file
Step 2 – CSV format selection during CSV Shopify import
— by default, the system does not know the format of file you defined,
— clever algorithm tries to detect format itself (in your case CSV file) for Shopify
— if you see any issue with format detection, you can set the right variant manually
Step 3 – Encoding for CSV, delimiter and wrapper before CSV import into Shopify
— there are many ways how CSV file can be saved
— software has to be ready to open common variants of CSV file for Shopify
— clever algorithm tries to detect all options automatically
— at this image, you see detection result for specific file
— client can change options if you see issues manually
Video instructions – encoding for CSV, delimiter and wrapper before CSV import into Shopify
Step 4 – Columns definition for CSV file
— each file for Shopify import has columns
— user has to define what column contains names, what column contains prices. It is columns matching
— there are 2 ways how to do that for CSV file at yfifx
1) via column definition
2) via product model fields definition(advanced mode – extended settings)
Step 4.1 — Loading categories
1) If the categories and subcategories are located in different columns, then to load them, you need to define the name of the columns as Category1, Category2, etc.
2) If the categories and subcategories are located in the same cell, then we define the column name as CategoryMultivalued. Then go to the Extended Settings in the Categories tab, in the CategoryDelimiter line, enter the separator between the category and the subcategory. In my example, this is a slash.
Video instructions – Loading categories
Step 4.2 — Loading basic product data
Basic information about the product – SKU, Name (required fields for downloading), Price, Quantity, etc. To load them, you need to correctly match the column names.
Video instructions – Loading basic product data
Step 4.3 — Uploading images
1) If the links to the images are located in separate columns, then you need to define the name for each column as “Image 1 (URL)”
2) If all links to images are located in one column in one cell, we define the column name as “Image1 (URL)”. Next, go to the Extended Settings → Images tab, in the "ImagesDelimiter" line, enter the separator between the images.
Video instructions – Uploading images
Step 4.4 — Loading features
1)Bulk loading of features. If the columns with features in the file go one after the other, then for the first column with the feature, we define the name as "FeatureFirst", the names and values of the remaining columns will be loaded automatically.
2) If the columns with features are out of order in the file, then the columns with features are defined as "Feature1", "Feature2" and so on. And enter the name of the feature in the "FeatureName" lines in the Extended Settings in the Features tab.
Video instructions – Loading features
Step 4.5 — Loading products with variants
1)To load products with variants, there must be a column with an SKU in the file that will combine all the variants (we define it as an SKU) and for each variant a column with its own unique SKU (we define the column as a CombinationSku). In the Extended Settings → the Combinations tab, we enter from which columns to take values for Price, Quantity, Image, etc.
2)Be sure to download the options variants — this is what distinguishes one product variant from another, for example, it may be the size or color of the product. To do this, we define columns with options as "Combination. Option1", "Combination. Option2”, etc., and in the Extended settings → the Combinations tab, in the "OptionName" lines, enter the name of the options.
Video instructions – Loading products with variants
Shopify XML import products
Import XML files into your Shopify store using Yfifx.com service!
Yfifx allows you to do full automation for import / update / sync data from any XML files for your Shopify stores.
You can import any size of files: we tested that on 10GB size XML.
How it works
1. You import products XML AS IS to yfifx as supplier products without any changes.
2. You define margin rules for repricing.
3. You select all products or any subset of suppliers categories / products what you want to import to Shopify.
4. yfifx updates selected products with new prices at MainFEED.
5. Your MainFEED you can export to your Shopify store via API or direct SQL db calls or you can access data via API.
Products fields for XML Shopify import
- SKU,ID,MPN,UPC,BARCODE,Ref etc,
- Price, SalePrice, OldPrice, Discount,
- Quantity/Stocks/Availability,
- Name,
- Categories,
- Manufacturer,
- Features,
- Options,Variants (Colors,Sizes etc),
- Dimensions: L x W x H, and Weight,
- Description,
- Images ,
- Url.
Contact us and get a 14 day free demo
Import XML files into your Shopify store!
yfifx allows you to do full automation for products update and sync from any XML files for your Shopify stores.
You can add new suppliers XML files itself or to ask us to do that for you by request.
Find below how it looks inside our software for Shopify
Step 1 – Feed configuration
There are several options exist how to upload XML file
— from PC
— from URL, FTP, Dropbox, Google sheets etc.
— from Email
— sometimes it is necessary to download file from supplier website under client's login & password (it is possible but will require custom development)
Video instructions - creating a supplier's feed and uploading a file
Step 2 – XML format selection
— by default, the system does not know the format of file you defined,
— clever algorithm tries to detect format itself (in your case XML file) for Shopify
— if you see any issue with format detection, you can set the right variant manually
Step 3 — XML tags definition for XML file
— each XML file for Shopify import has tags
— user has to define what XML contains names, what column contains prices. It is columns matching
— there are 2 ways how to do that for XML file at yfifx
1) via tags definition
Step 4 — Define XPath for required fields of your XML file
A standard XML file consists of two blocks: a block with categories and a block with a product card. A block with a product card may include a sub-block with images, a block with characteristics, a block with product variants
Video instructions - Xml file structure
Step 4.1 — categories
Step 4.2 — a product
1) We define the root elements that contain the product card and input their XPath in the "Product._Root" and "Product._Item" lines. In some files there is no root element "Product._Root", in this case we input only "Product._Item"
Video instructions - Root element of product card
2) Then input the XPath to the values of the SKU (required input field), Name, Quantity, Price, etc.
Video instructions - The XPath to the values of the data
Step 4.3 — images
1) If the images are a separate block in the product card, then input the XPath to the root elements of the block with images and the tag that contains the link to the image
2) If the link to the image is registered as a separate tag in the product card, then input the XPath to the link in the line "Product.ImageUrl"
Video instructions - import images
Step 4.4 — features
Step 4.5 — products with variants
Automatic Categories import to your Shopify store
You can import categories from any csv xml excel file into your shopify .
We store categories from source file like tags.
You can use tags for building smart categories for your shopify store.
You can map source categories names (or paths) to categories from your store.
For mapping you hae to use excel file with 2 columns: source and target.
Additionally it is possible to exclude not necessary categories from import.
features import
Options & variants products import into Shopify
YfiFX allows you to import Options & variants products import into Shopify in a bulk.
Limits for Shopify
– up to 3 options per 1 product
– up to 100 variants per 1 product
You can load options and variants from any type of file source: csv excel xml json.
Bulk Images import for Shopify Products
Shopify images import - short instruction
Step 1. Import data into yfifx (to appropriate supplier section)
Step 2. Update Main Feed At yfifx - Run "Repricing" function
Step 3. Export updated data from yfifx into your Shopify online store.
*** - All steps can be automated via scheduler.
simple mode - select column from combo-box
advanced mode - define column names
Stocks & prices update
yfifx is a Shopify inventory management software. yfifx allows you to manage your Shopify product and variation stocks using a simple grid view.
Margin & markup
The markup is the added value to the purchase price. The markup allows you to make a profit and cover all the expenses of the company. For successful sales, a margin is required, if you sell the product at the purchase price, then the profit will be equal to 0.
To sell goods at a bargain price, you, as an online store owner, need to mark up the prices offered by suppliers. You can also set prices on the website below the prices on the supplier’s website. To do this, when creating a pricing rule in our service, in this case, you need to set a negative margin.
The yfifx service has the ability to make various markups, as well as find the minimum supplier price.
Methods of repricing of products prices:
- Individual markup for a specific product. If you already have an individual markup coefficient for each product, you can import it into yfifx.
- Markups for each supplier. This is a standard functionality that allows you to set individual markup rules for each supplier’s feed depending on the product category, product price, brand.
- Dynamic markup depending on competitors’ prices. These are the markup options described in point 2, plus competitor prices. Your price will adjust to the competitor’s price (may decrease, may increase) with the specified accuracy, but not lower than the purchase price and the minimum specified margin or RRP (if any).
- Markups at the level of the Main Feed (your price list)
Important! The total prices for products, taking into account the markup, will appear when you start the function “Update prices and quantities at Main Feed”, and not immediately after creating a rule in the supplier’s feed.
Margin at the level of the Main Feed or the supplier feed
Pricing rules can be configured at the level of the supplier’s feed and / or Main feed. If there are pricing rules in both the Main feed and the supplier’s feed, then the priority of the margin at the level of the Main feed should be taken into account.
For each price list, the margin can be individual, for example, margin for certain brands, for a price range or markup for a category or for a specific product.
In the personal account of the user of the yfifx service, click on the Feeds button in the menu and in the list of uploaded feeds that appears, select the one you want to process.
Then click on the Margin Setup and in the 'Margin rules for feed' window that opens, click on 'Create new rule'.
A new window, Main Rule editor, will open, in which you can name a specific margin, specify the currency, indicate to which category and (or) manufacturer the margin will be applied, create a formula taking into account the marginality and payment for delivery of goods, form the old price:
Click the “Save” button and the created rule will appear in the “Margin rules for feed” window.
Building Old Price
You can create an Old Price in a Margin rule. The old price allows you to create discounts for goods on the site.
To form the Old price, the coefficient K old must be specified in the pricing rule. K old is the percentage by which the price of the product will be increased.
The old price is formed by the formula — Price * (1+ (K old / 100))
Individual product markup
You can set up an individual markup yourself for a specific product or load a column with a markup and yfifx will automatically recalculate the price taking into account the loaded markup.
In the case when the supplier in the price list gives an individual markup for each product, when importing products into yfifx, you can designate this column as Markup (K, %), Markup (Coefficient, *) and Markup (S, +).
For example:
After loading the price list, the markup will be displayed automatically in the product viewer in the Markup tab:
Behavior of products without margin
1 If the Margin rules do not apply in the supplier’s feed or in the Main feed, then the purchase price will become the selling price of the products:
2 If there are Margin rules in the supplier’s feed or in the Main feed, but the product does not fall into the price range for the selected category or manufacturer for which the margin is applied, then the price of such product in the Main feed will be reset to zero. And an error will appear in the Text Log of Price & Quantity recalculation in the Main Feed – “Error: Test – Supplier has formulas but no one applied, so price will be = 0”:
Repricing for Shopify Products
Use Shopify repricing software. We develop repricing software since 2009.
Increase your sales and maximize profits via automated repricing software for Shopify
More sales
Give the best price at marketplaces
And get more sales.
You can import competitors data from any external source: excel file, email,price monitoring api.
yfifx will load real-time compatitors data and will use it for repricing your Shopify products.
Contact us and get a 14 day free demo
Required minimum profit guarantee
Software does not give you to sell items without min. profit.
yfifx detects case if one of your competitors publish extra small prices and prevent you from selling your products without profit.
Contact us and get a 14 day free demo
Different strategies for Shopify repricing
There are 2 main strategy how to do repricing at your Shopify store.
1 - without competitors prices.
2 - with competitors prices.
Get maximum profit using Shopify repricing
Software for Shopify will get you maximum profit if there is no competitors. yfifx detects event when there is no competitors for specific product and if it is true yfifx set max. profit % for that product automatically.
Create different repricing rules for your Shopify repricing
yfifx has wide range of filters where and how to apply automatic margins rules for your Shopify products for repricing.
scheduler
Setup products import 1 time and after that run products import / update via scheduler automatically.
Sync Algorithm
It allows merchants to import 1K-200K products into your online store stores automatically.
1. Categories management for your online store
If category does not exist (is new) it will be created in the other case creation will be skipped.
2. Products management for your online store
If product does not exist (will be checked by SKU) it will be created in the other case for product will be updated Price, STOCK / Quantity, Availability.
3. Bulk your online store products import specification
The following fields will be imported for new product:
- SKU,
- name,
- quantity,
- availability,
- price,
- all images,
- features,
- options (variants) with all relations,
- descriptions: short & full,
- assignment to category ( 1 or many).
FAQ
Do you support products option/variants data?
Yes, we do. All variants will be extracted correctly. For example sizes, colors will be extracted with appropriate sku, price, availability.
Can I download data via API?
Yes, you can.
Can I import data from multiple feeds into 1 account?
Yes, you can.
Could I setup custom margin for specific supplier/category/product?
Yes, you can.
The same product is available at 2 suppliers (different prices and different stocks)? Do you support such case?
Yes, we support it.
I have my private small warehouse + work with suppliers by drop shipping. Do you support such cases?
Yes, we do.
Supplier Integration
Do you have a supplier that you want to integrate with yfifx? No problem, we can integrate!
Web Scrapers - integration
If your supplier does not give data use web scrapers.
Contact sales & we will estimate your integration.
API integration
Contact sales & we will estimate your integration.
CSV, Excel File integration
Such type of files is really easy to use at yfifx.
XML File integration
Such type of files require custom configuration.
Contact sales & we will estimate your integration.
JSON File integration
Such type of files require custom configuration.
Contact sales & we will estimate your integration.
Api access
Export data
Translate Shopify product texts, content, features, options
If you need to get translations for your texts or to mix data from different sources
or to translate text via Google / Bing / Yandex translate services via API.
Copying the supplier’s feed to the Main feed
Before starting to work in the yfifx service, as a rule, you already have your Main feed, information from which goes to your online store — this is the name and description of products, their prices, and availability. You download this Main feed right away when you start working in the service, if you have one.
You also download and update the price feeds of your suppliers and create references between the products in these price lists. You may need to form the Main Feed from scratch or supplement it with some new supplier’s feeds. You can then delete unnecessary commodity items within the framework of a specific price list.
There are three ways to copy products from the supplier’s feed to the Main feed. With any method of copying, the references between the products of the supplier and the Main Feed are built automatically.
Copying products through the function “Copy supplier’s feed into Main feed”
With this method of copying, all products from the supplier’s feed are copied, and the function “Categories Mapping” is also available.
Select Functions in the menu and in the drop-down list press — “Copy supplier feed into Main feed”.
In the window that opens, select the Supplier Feed of the supplier from which you want to copy the products and click “Run copy”.
Copying products from the supplier’s price page
This method is convenient when you need to copy all the products, and when you need to copy part of the products from the supplier’s price list, for example, products to which Filter is applied.
Go to the supplier’s price page and click “Copy all to the Main Feed”:
Selective copying of products from the supplier’s feed to the Main feed
Go to the supplier’s price page, select the necessary products for copying with checkmarks and click “Copy to Main Feed”:
Errors, why the product may not be copied
It quite often happens that you start copying a product, but it does not happen.
The reasons why the product is not copied into the Main Feed are as follows:
- This product is already in the Main Feed. How to check what to do: open the Main Feed and enter the article of the copied product into the search and see if it exists. If so, then build a reference with the product that you want to copy or delete it and copy it again.
- This product has a reference with the product from the Main Feed. The reference can be with a non-existent product in the Main Feed, then the plus sign of the links does not glow green. How to check what to do: open the References button in the supplier’s feed, then click “Show bad references” and enter our article in the search. If a reference is found, you can delete it. You can remove all broken references if you are at the stage of initial settings and testing.
- You are using category matching (if you don’t use it, this item is not relevant for you) and it is not specified for the category of the copied product. How to check what to do: open the copied product (the Open button for the product), go to the Categories tab and copy the entire category line. Then go to the menu “Functions — Copy supplier feed into Main feed”, select the supplier and download the file of Categories Mapping (button “Download template”). Open the Excel file and look for a product category in it (CTRL + F). If it is not there, add it to the file and repeat copying.
- If items 1-3 have been checked and the product is still not copied, write to us, and we will help you solve the problem.
Translations – how to do and why they are needed.
Translation of text from one language to another
Translating text from one language to another works through the Google translation API.
It is configured through the Settings of the Main Feed and works when the product is copied from the supplier’s feed to the Main Feed or at the level of the supplier’s feed and works when the price list is loaded.
In the Settings of the feed in the line “Google Translate” it is necessary to register from which language to translate, to which language to translate and ApiKey according to the formula: From | To | ApiKey. The language codes can be found
here.
Replacing one word with another
This translation option requires compiling a dictionary and works when the product is copied from the supplier’s feed to the Main Feed. Additionally, you can call translations from the dictionary during the import of products into the price list through functions.
The function “translations” is needed, for example, for the following cases in the processing of prices.
1. Replace one word from the original price list with another, or delete it altogether.
For example, in the product description, there is a phone number that must be deleted or changed to your own.
2. Massively change one word / phrase to another.
For example, when you need to convert sizes from the US system to the Russian system.
A set of translations is compiled.
Go to the “Words replacement” tab:
Compiling a dictionary of translations:
Setting up translations for files in Excel format.
In the advanced settings of Excel download, a formula is set for the required field,
for example,
= Translator.StringFullChange (F) — replaces phrases one to one
or
= Translator.TranslateText (F) — used to replace the original word with a new one inside the text.
Where F = the column from which the source string will be taken for translation.
It is important to understand that it is the words that are replaced, not the parts of the words.
If you need to replace parts of words, then use the standard C# function — string.Replace (“from”, “to”)
An example of translating option values in the price list
Setting up translations for files in any format.
Go to Functions — Content — Translation prices:
Select the price and fields for which you want to start the translation and click “Run”:
Bulk feeds updater
Bulk feeds updater is an alternative to “Scheduler”, suitable for prices downloaded locally. Bulk feeds updater allows in one window to configure the loading of prices for updating, to start further updating and export of the Main Feed.
All tasks are launched with the settings with which they were launched last time.
Feeds Priority
By default, none of the feeds has a preference. But it so happens that you need to select a supplier. For this, the function “Feeds Priority” is used.
So If the product has supplier related products, and if at least one of them is in the feeds’ priority, then the one with the higher priority will become the “winner”, its prices and quantities will be used in the recalculation for the item from the Main Feed.
Go to Configuration — Feeds Priority. In the window that opens, put a check mark “Use feeds priorities”, move the lines, set the required order of suppliers’ feed and click “Save”:
Working with RRP/MRP in the Suppliers Feed
Working with RRP/MRP in the Supplier’s Feed is supported in yfifx. In this article, we will consider the issue of working with the RRP.
What is RRP and MRP:
- RRP — Recommended Retail Price.
- MRP — Minimum Retail Price.
From the point of view of processing the prices of the RRP and MRP, this is the same thing.
yfifx uses the RRP abbreviation in all configuration dialogs and visual elements.
What is the RRP for?
The supplier, manufacturer introduces and controls the RRP in order to manage the minimum price in the market for different sellers.
In short, it is impossible to sell cheaper than the RRP. And usually the RRP is controlled, sanctions are applied to violators (products are not shipped, discounts are lost, etc.).
How to take into account the RRP in the Supplier’s Feed?
By default, if you downloaded an item from the RRP, then the RRP will be used when repricing the product. In those, the selling price will become = RRP.
It happens that the same product is available from different suppliers with different RRP. If there is such a situation, then yfifx takes the lower RRP as the price.
How to sell cheaper than RRP?
There are several options. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. Which one you need, you can understand during the testing of functions:
- Do not upload the RRP to the Supplier’s Feed.
- Disable Price from RRP from recalculate. To do this, in the Supplier’s Feed, go to the Settings section and put a checkmark “Disabling price list from recalculate”, click “Save”.
- Create a margin (Pricing) with the “RRP disable” setting enabled.
Go to the Margin Setup — Create new rules, set the margin and tick the “RRP disable” box, click “Save”:
- Disable the use of RRP for a specific Supplier’s Feed.
In the Supplier’s Feed, go to the Setting section and put a checkmark “RRP disable”, click “Save”
- Disable the RRP in the revaluation function globally.
Go to “Functions — Update prices and quantities at Main Feed”, put a tick on “RRP disable” and click “Update”.
How to sell above the RRP?
Usually, they still sell at the RRP. But there are cases when it is possible and necessary to sell higher than the declared value of the RRP.
For example, this is very important if you sell a product on a marketplace, price monitoring showed that there are no competitors for a specific product at a specific time. Then you can sell above the RRP.
In yfifx, it is possible to set the following behavior in the function “Update prices and quantities at Main Feed”:
Export Main Feed
To update information about products already on your website, use the function of the yfifx — export Main Feed (from the service).
Export Main Feed to a file
Export Main Feed to a file is carried out simply: in the menu, click Functions — Export Main Feed. In the window that appears, click on Export config for Main Feed:
In the window “Export config for Main Feed” select the file type. Then click “Save” (3) and close the window:
In the “Main Feed Export” window, click Run. When the export to file is finished, you can download the file from the Exported Files column:
Export Main Feed to email
To export the Main Feed to e-mail, you must:
- Select the file format into which the Main Feed will be uploaded.
- Write down the e-mail to which the Main Feed will be sent in the selected format.
- Next, click “Save”, close “Export config for Main Feed” window and start the export:
Upon completion of the export, a letter with the unloaded Main Feed file will be sent to your e-mail:
Categories mapping to your site’s categories
It so happened that in most cases there are no categories in the Supplier’s Feed, but the opposite situation also happens — they are.
When a supplier provides in its feed and categories, it becomes necessary to compare these categories with their categories, with the categories of the Main Feed. This is not an obligatory action if you have your own generated feed, and you only need to update prices and quantities.
When you need it
This is relevant when copying a supplier’s feed to a Main Feed in the following cases:
- When you create your Main Feed from supplier’s feed (you do not have your own feed), and categories are needed here.
- Adding (manual or automatic) new products from Supplier’s Feed to Main Feed (to your feed). Products need to fall into the correct categories for your feed, and this setting can help with this.
For this to work, the Supplier’s Feed must be loaded with categories. Whether there are categories in the Supplier’s Feed can be checked by going to the desired Supplier’s Feed and pressing the Categories button, there will be something like this picture:
If there are categories, you can make settings for the mapping of these categories to your categories — the categories of the Main Feed.
How to do it
In the yfifx menu, select Functions → Copy supplier feed into Main feed:
A dialog box will open, in which you need to select the Supplier’s Feed from which we will copy the products to the Main Feed and for which you need to configure the mapping of categories. Choose from the list of Supplier’s Feed and download the template (list of categories) for customization:
A template is an Excel file with a list of categories. In the second column, you need to indicate the name and nesting of your categories, where you need to transfer products from the Supplier’s Feed to the Main Feed (your feed).
If the category and products do not need to be moved, leave the cell empty:
After editing the file, save it and load it back into the system for the required Supplier’s Feed:
Example categories mapping
1 Block — the names were changed with nesting categories
2 Block — empty cells, these categories will not be copied.
3 Block — if you need to combine several categories into one, write the same name for the destination category.
Update Main Feed content from the supplier
In the Main Feed in yfifx, you can add or update content from other suppliers feed that are in the yfifx.
Why is it needed — if the products in the Main Feed do not have enough content, you can add or update it from any other upload that you have. This can be downloading content from the supplier’s site, for example. Or any other content uploaded to the PM.
As a result, the function allows you to “enrich” your product cards with missing content from other sources.
In addition to content, you can update any other parameters, such as product weight, manufacturer, manufacturer’s article, etc.
To update the content, you must:
- create a supplier’s feed in the PM and upload a file to it
- build references between the products of the Main Feed and the supplier feed, where the content was uploaded;
- launch the content update function, which will update the Main Feed using the created references.
To start the content update function, go to Functions — Content — Update Main Feed content from the supplier
In the window that opens, select the supplier’s feed from which we will update the Main Feed and select the field that needs to be updated. There are three update options: update always, update only if empty, and add new values (for arrays only).
Scheduler
In yfifx, you can set a scheduler that will perform a number of configured actions automatically.
When the schedule starts, the following tasks are run by default:
- All feeds of suppliers that have an external source are loaded (by links, from mail, by API, etc.). If the suppliers feed is loaded from the computer, then such feed will not be loaded accordingly.
- Launch of the function “Update prices and quantities at Main feed”. And also repricing taking into account the feed of competitors, if it is configured.
- Export of the Main feed.
All tasks are launched with the settings with which they were launched last time.
It is also possible to create an individual set of commands and settings that can be run on a schedule. You need to contact support with this question.
Almost all functions (content updating, building references, copying prices, etc.) that are available in the yfifx interface can be launched on a schedule.
Building references between products in the yfifx service
Building references is a comparison of a product from the Main Feed and a product from the supplier’s feed, and the subsequent updating of the product from the Main Feed with a product from the supplier’s feed using the constructed reference.
Why do this?
Sometimes the same product may have a different SKU and other characteristics. The SKU created by the manufacturer may differ from the SKU at the seller, or the name of the product may be in different languages in different price lists, or supplied from different places, etc. References between products help to avoid duplicates on the site and correctly make a margin, taking into account the minimum purchase price of suppliers (the minimum prices can also be seen in the Summary report, if references are configured).
There will be one product on the site (no erroneous repetition) with a margin on the supplier’s minimum price.
There are two types of references — made manually and automatically. In practice, this is, as a rule, a combination of both options, when the automatic algorithm works first, and then what is not automatically linked is completed manually.
Building references automatically
In the personal account of the user of the yfifx service, in the menu, click on Functions and select “Build references” from the drop-down list.
References between products are made according to the article (the best option), name or other data. In the settings, specify between which supplier feed to create a reference now (1), select the field for referring (2) and start the process (3).
After the end of the process of building references, the “Preview of references built by process” window opens. In this window, you can save all created references to the base or delete references:
After building references, products with reference change the color of the plus sign — from gray, it turns green. When you click on the plus sign, a plate about the product appears, in which you can see in the feed of which supplier this product is and what the purchase price and the sales price (in this example, with a 10% markup).
Even if the product in the updated feed of the supplier disappears and then reappears, the reference will be restored. That is why, within any supplier’s feed, you can selectively delete or all products, but not the supplier’s feed itself (the supplier’s feed is removed from the list of feeds by clicking on Remove on the right in the feed page). If you completely delete the supplier’s feed itself, then all data from the system will disappear, and you will have to reload the supplier’s feed, set the correspondence of fields and create reference between the products of this supplier’s feed and others.
Building references manually
To set up the reference between the products of the Main Feed and the supplier’s feed:
- Select a product in the supplier’s feed and click on “+” (1);
- Click on “Add reference” (2);
- In the window that opens, select the supplier’s feed with which you are making a reference (3);
- Select the desired product from the list or search for it using the search bar on the right (4)
- Select the desired product (5);
- Click “Add reference” (6).
Update prices and quantities
The yfifx service implements the function of automatic updating of prices and quantities.
The function “Update prices and quantities at Main feed” is the main function of yfifx. This function also launches the recalculation of prices with a set margin, the formation of the old price and starts a revaluation taking into account the prices of competitors.
Prices and quantities are updated in the Main Feed, the data from which is sent to your online store or uploaded to Excel, CSV, XML, YML, JSON files. In order for prices and quantities to be updated, you need to upload the price lists of suppliers to the service and create references between products.
If the suppliers feeds are loaded, then select Functions from the menu and in the drop-down list click “Update prices and quantities at Main feed”.
In the window “Price and Quantities update for Main feed from supplier feed” you need to select what you need — updating prices, quantities or old prices; updating products with a price and (or) quantity equal to zero; check the box so that the sale price is higher than the RRP; starting the formation of the Summary report. You can choose how to deal with products without references — leave unchanged, zero the quantity, or zero both the quantity and the price. To start the update process, you need to click “Update”.
Updating the parent feed by SKU
There are situations when a supplier gives one price list with the content of products, and in another price list, for example, prices and quantities. In order to combine these two price lists into one — in the yfifx, it is possible to create prices — parent (main content) and child (for example, prices and quantities).
When loading a child price list, the fields specified in the download settings, for example, prices and quantities, will be automatically updated in the parent feed. The parent feed is updated according to the article.
How to create and update a parent price list
- We load the parent feed first.
For example, I load a price list in which there are no prices and quantities, and I will need to update these columns from the second price list:
- Create a second price list, into which we will load the child feed.
- For the settings for updating the parent feed, you require knowing the ID of the parent feed. To do this, in the created price list, click on the name of the price list. From the displayed list of all suppliers feed, you require finding the parent feed and remember its ID.
- Next, click on the “Upload” tab.
- In the download window, select the appropriate download type (1) and click the lowest line “Extra settings” (2).
- In the line “Parent Price ID” — write the ID of the parent feed.
- In the line “ParentPriceUpdateProcessingMode (Qty, Price, RRP, Weight etc.)” — write the field that needs to be updated, if there are several fields, then separated by commas. For example, if you need to update the price and availability, write in the line — Qty,Price(3).
- Click “Continue” (4) and load the price list as usual.
- As a result of loading the child feed in the parent feed, the fields that you specified in the settings will be automatically updated according to the SKU. In my case, after loading the child feed in the parent feed, prices, and quantities were updated:
Available fields to update
Using this method of updating, you can update not only the quantities and the price, but most of the fields in the yfifx. Examples of field names can be found in this table:
Matching product features
In this manual, we will analyze the “Matching features” function.
For example, in the Supplier feed there is a feature “Height (mm)”, and in the Main Feed the same feature is spelled out as “Height, mm”. In order not to create duplicate features when copying products from the Supplier feed to the Main Feed, you can use the “Matching features” function.
To do this, in the Supplier feed, go to the “Matching features” tab:
For mass editing of features, click “Download current settings” (1), the file will be downloaded in which you need to write the renamed features in the second column. You can also edit features in the file for all categories or for specific categories. After finishing editing the file, upload it to the service by clicking on the button “Upload new settings” (2)
