Welcome to our Frequently Asked Questions
- How to create a catalogue (PDF document)
- On which sites will my product offers be displayed?
- Technical specifications for catalogues
- How long will the integration of my catalogue take?
- How and when do updates happen?
- How can I change the order in which my products are displayed?
- How do I offer sales items on the LeGuide.com Group?
- How can I integrate a catalogue via an e-commerce solution?
- How can I optimise the categorisation of offers in my catalogue?
I Technical specifications for catalogues
1. DEFINITION OF FIELDS TO FILL IN
2. OUTLINE OF CONTENT REQUIRED
- COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS
- PRODUCTS BY SIZE
- PRODUCTS BY COLOUR
II Technical specifications for catalogue formats
1. CSV/TXT catalogues
- CSV/TXT FORMAT
- CODING
- OS SOURCE
2. XML Catalogues
- XML FORMAT
- CODING
III SUBMITTING AND UPDATING YOUR CATALOGUE
1. Submitting by URL
2. Submitting via FTP
3. Updating
To integrate your products on our sites and into our shopping search engines, we need an export file of your catalogue.
If you use one of our e-commerce solution partners, you can profit from a simplified export: See the list of our partners
What is an export file of a product catalogue?
An export file of your product catalogue is a file containing all your products in a CSV, TXT or XML defined format. This file comprises different fields or tags containing precise information which allows us to display your products on our sites. The display quality of your products depends on the quality of your file.
I Technical specifications for the information supplied in your feed
1.DEFINITION OF FIELDS TO FILL IN
| OBLIGATORY FIELDS |
DEFINITION | EXAMPLE |
| category | The category or 'product family' in which the product belongs (250 characters maximum) This field will not be displayed but will help with the categorisation of your products into our categories. |
Audiovisual > Cameras > Digital camera |
| unique_id | A unique reference code to enable easy identification of the product. The same product should always have the same identification code which should never be given to a different product (25 characters maximum). (Alphanumeric field) | 0001, 0002, etc. or A45J |
| title | The product title on your website (72 maximum recommended characters). | CANON PowerShot Digital Camera |
| description | A detailed and clear description of the product. Only the first 250 characters will be displayed. |
Digital camera, 8.0 megapixels, optical zoom: 3.6 x - memory: MMC, SD |
| price | The price (incl. tax) in GBP of the product on your site. You should use a full stop to seperate the decimals. If the prices are not in GBP, simply add a 'currency' column (see 'specific fields') | 526.32 |
| product_URL | Link to your site page where the offer can be found by the user.It can include tracking codes. | http(s)://www.yoursite.co.uk/product_1.html?tracking1=value1&tracking2=value2 |
| landing_URL | Corresponds to the final url of the product pages of the site: it is a URL - which starts with http:// or https:// - which takes the domain name of the site - which does not have tracking. Note that this field is different from the ""Product_name"" field, which contains tracking and whose root may be different from the domain name. This field, if new, must be added as the last column of the feed. |
URL website: http(s)://www.yoursite.co.uk/ landing_URL: http(s)://www.yousite.co.uk/products/product1.html |
| image_URL |
A link to the product image. Format GIF, JPG or PNG. This image should not be an animated gif or the logo of your site or company. Recommended size: 340*340 pixels Images must not include publicity or marketing text. |
http://www.yoursite.com/images/image1.jpg |
| EAN |
"European Article Number". This field comprises 13 numbers and corresponds the product's barcode. Completing this field improves the visibility of your products on our sites. |
3003257895456 |
| delivery_charge | The total (incl. VAT) of all charges related to the order: delivery charge, postage and packaging, handling fees etc. Please seperate decimals with a full stop. | 0 (if free) 22.32 |
| availability |
The availability of the product. A numeric value which will be intepreted in days by default. Enter the number of days until the product will be in stock in your shop. 0 = In stock. If the unit is not days, please indicate the unit (accepted values: hours, hour; day, days; week, weeks; month, months). For availability periods with an overlap, please seperate the values with a dash (-). |
1 48 hours 1-2 weeks |
| delivery_time | Maximum delivery time. A numeric value which will be intepreted in days by default. Enter the number of days it will take to deliver the product to the customer from the time the product is in stock in your shop. If the unit is not days, please indicate the unit (accepted values: hour, hours; day, days; week, weeks; month, months). For availability periods with an overlap, please seperate the values with a dash (-). |
1 48 hours 24-48 hours |
| guarantee |
The length of the product guarantee (or waranty). In years by default. -2 = The product comes with a lifetime guarantee |
1
-2 |
| RECOMMENDED FIELDS |
DEFINITION |
EXAMPLE |
| model_reference |
Official reference given to the product by the manafacturer. |
S80 |
| marque |
The commercial brand of the product. |
Canon |
| MPN | (Manufacturer Part Number) this field is composed of a series of numbers and / or letters. It is the manufacturer reference, it is unique to each of them, which helps identification. This can only be assigned by product manufacturer not the merchant. | SPHE1045 > Box Set "The Tudors" 5C5-0013 500 GB > Xbox One 2577A011 > Canon Lens |
| full_price |
If the price has been reduced (promotion, clearance...) indicate the old product price (incl. VAT) in GBP. The full price must have been previously displayed on your site. |
213.00 |
| colour |
Indicate the colour of your product. If your product has a dominant colour and other colours (eg in the case of clothing), you can specify multiple colours. First specify the dominant colour then the others. Separate colours using a comma (recommended character). Do not use a character of the same type that you used in the column separation field. |
- red, - blue turquoise, - grey anthracite. |
| size |
Indicate the size of your product. You can specify multiple sizes (especially in the case of clothing). Then separate them with commas (recommended character) or specify a range of sizes available. If you specify multiple sizes, do not use a character of the same type that you used in the column separation field. |
Clothing: - S, M, L, XL - 39-42 Shoes: - 42, 43, 44 - 36-39 Furniture: L 151 x W 52.5 x H 69 cm Beds: 180 x 200 cm Televisions: - 32 inches - 81 cm |
| material |
Indicate the main subject of your product (or depending on the type of product, the main material of your product). You can specify multiple materials, especially in the case of clothing, or more materials. Then separate them with commas (recommended character). Do not use a character of the same type that you used in the column separation field. |
- 70% wool, 20% polyamide, 10% cashmere - Oak - Stainless steel |
| SPECIFIC FIELDS |
DEFINITION |
EXAMPLE |
| currency |
Use the standard 3 letter code ISO 4217. You may check currency codes on the site iso.org |
EUR, CHF, GPB, US, PLN etc. |
| second-hand |
Indicate if the product is second-hand ('1' if the product is second-hand, '0' if the product is new). (Numeric value only) |
0 |
| type_promotion |
Indicate the type of promotion which applies to your product ('0': products not on sale, '1': product on sale, '2': product with a second mark-down |
0 |
| mobile_URL |
If you have specific urls which allow your products to be viewed from a mobile phone, please ensure you make a clear distinction between the 'mobile_URL' des 'product_URL' |
http://www.yoursite.mobile.com/products/product1.html |
| unit_price |
Indicate the unitary price for grouped products or the price per unit of measurement (weight, volume, etc.) for products. |
Lot of 3 pairs of socks, 4.50 GBP per pair Lot of 4 Alcaline AAA batteries at £3.90 (0.975p the unit) GBP 105.80 / 100 ml |
2. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INFORMATION SUPPLIED
Each product must only appear once in your catalogue- we do not accept multiple offers for the same product.
- COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS
For 'compatible' or 'universal' products (ink cartridges, mobile phone covers, laptop batteries, etc.) we only accept one occurence of the same offer per brand.
The brand for theses compatible/universal products should be indicated as "[Name of brand] compatible"
LeGuide.com reserves the right to deny the display of products which may obstruct the internet users visibility. This may result in deleting the display of entire categories in which numerous repeated offers are present.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.
- PRODUCTS BY SIZE
Products available in different sizes must be submitted as one single product. Different available sizes should be indicated in the description field. The price submitted should be the least expensive of all the available sizes.
- PRODUCTS BY COLOUR
Products available in different colours must be submitted as one single product. Different available colours should be indicated in the description field.
However, you may submit one product per colour if the product url is different for each colour.
II Technical specifications for catalogue formats
1.CSV/TXT Catalogues
- CSV/TXT FORMAT
Files in the following formats are accepted: CSV, TXT and XML. We prefer TXT/CSV as these are the easiest to manipulate.
You may follow our Guide to creating a catalogue which lists the steps to follow to create and send a product catalogue.
Structure of the CSV/TXT file
The first line of the file must contain a heading for each column.
Each product must be presented on one single line.
The file must contain an equal number of lines as products as well as the title line. Each product line must also contain the same number of column seperators as the title line.
The name of the file is final and must not contain the date, spaces, accented characters or symbols. You may, for example, name your file leguide or the name of your site: yoursite
All fields concerning products must be seperated by a seperating character between each field (tab, '|', ';' etc).
Important: the structure of your file should not be modified once your products are integrated. If you wish to add or delete information (fields), please contact us in advance to ensure these modifications are correctly taken into account.
Each product must be presented on one single line (pay attention to descriptions overrunning)
Photos should not be animated.
Attention: once the file is finished, you maust save it in TXT or CSV format.
This is very easy to do from Excel:
- For TXT format:
File > Save as... > Save as type: Text (text delimited)(*.txt)(*.txt)
Then click 'Save', then 'OK', and finally 'yes'
- For CSV format:
File > Save as... > Save as type: CSV (comma delimited)(*.csv). Then click 'Save', then 'OK', and finally 'yes'
The name of the file is final and must not contain the date, spaces, accented characters or symbols. You may, for example, name your file leguide or the name of your site: yoursite
NB:
Here is a TXT example with the pipe '|' seperator.
You can easily create a file in TXT or CSV format from Excel. To do this, simply download the document ModeleLeGuide.xls, save it onto your computer and fill it in.
- CODING
The coding should be UTF-8. ISO 8859-1 is also accepted.
- OS SOURCE
The file should be saved in Windows or UNIX/DOS format (Attention: MAC users must make a conversion).
2. XML Catalogues
- FORMAT XML
The name of the tags should not contain accented characters. If possible, use the headings in the table above. In order to avoid an invalid character breaking the validity of the XML and therefore rendering it unreadable, you must surround all the character chains with CDATA tags. This is not necessary for numeric content.
Important: If you add or delete tags once your catalogue has been integrated, please contact us to ensure that these changes have been taken into consideration.
Here is an example of an XML file
The name of the file is final and must not contain the date, spaces, accented characters or symbols. You may, for example, name your file leguide.xml or give it the name of your site: yoursite.xml
- CODING
the coding should be UTF-8. ISO 8859-1 is also accepted.
III SUBMITTING AND UPDATING YOUR CATALOGUE
1.URL
All you now need to do is to drop your export file onto your server, and then let us know where we may find it on your site from now on (eg: http://www.mysite.com/leguide.txt).
Complete this location (URL) in the field 'Catalogue' , 'Automatic mode' in your Shop Account Management Area then validate, to send us the URL.
2.FTP
If you are unable to drop the file onto your server, you may request FTP access which enables you to drop the file onto one of our servers.
To request FTP access: Please go to your Shop Account Management Area
Then go to the tab 'Catalogue' , 'Automatic mode' , 'Request FTP access'. An email will be sent to you with your username and password to access our FTP.
3. Updates
By default, we recuperate your updates everyday between 8pm and 1am. These updates are online mid-morning the following day.
If your catalogue is automatically updated at a specific time, you may indicate the best time for us to recuperate it: contact
Contact
If you wish to send us your catalogue URL, ask for FTP access to be created, or you have another question concerning the integration of your products, please contact us using our contact form.