[WilkoWilko]

 
Hi All,

I would like to import an affiliate data feed from e2save to my magneto site. The datafeed is as seen below -

•CSV datafeed - The full product feed CSV file is located at http://media.e2save....eed_www.csv.zip
•XML Datafeed - The full product feed XML file is located at http://media.e2save....eed_www.xml.zip

I understand that moneysupermarket already use e2saves datafeed, as seen in the example below http://www.moneysupe...e-4-16gb-black/

I would like to replicate what moneysupermarket have (the list of deals that link to e2saves checkout) but on my magneto product pages

example the list of deals would be under the product details on normal a product page like this

http://demo.magentoc...2610-phone.html

This is what i would imagin would happen if I uploaded the datafeed e2save have provided me, is this true?

Also, is it possible to do this even though magneto uses its own checkout?

I think this job can be completed in less than 20 mins, so I would offer £10

[oakleaves]

Hi WilkoWilko

Quote

I think this job can be completed in less than 20 mins, so I would offer £10

Just waiting for the axe to fall

Anybody want to take the bait?!

This post has been edited by oakleaves: 04 September 2011 - 08:11 PM

[WilkoWilko]

How long would you think it would take to complete this job?

[oakleaves]

Doesn't matter - Could you be bothered doing a job for £10?

[IWannaDesigner]

WilkoWilko, on 04 September 2011 - 07:01 PM, said:

I think this job can be completed in less than 20 mins, so I would offer £10

Sorry but I had to sign in just to say: LOL!!!

[WilkoWilko]

Ok, I'll admit I did go it for a low price. Time does matter however. What price do you think would be fair for this job?

[oakleaves]

Too late for that now I'm afraid, you will have just alienated everyone who uses this forum - no offence, just read the other threads

Suggest you look on Elance, some work for that type of price

[WilkoWilko]

I don't see how it is too late. It seems to me that this forum would act to much like a clique , to push prices up, if i have already alienated everyone on this forum. Genuinely how long do you think it would take to complete this job? Surely that would influence the price.

[zed]

what makes you think it will only take 20 minutes?

[WilkoWilko]

Well a friend of mine told me he could do it in less than 30 minutes, but he is away for 2 weeks so I would rather get it done before then

This post has been edited by WilkoWilko: 04 September 2011 - 09:06 PM

[Jock]

Its not a straight forward import into magento, otherwise you'd have half a million products in the default category. You'd need to create categories for phone manufacturers then subcategories for phone model then separate products within that category for each tarriff, then import each e2save 'gift' as a product option. More than 20 minutes work.

[pandadoodle]

i can import it all in 2min, but ill let you manually sort ALL the products into categories, source the images and so on. Leaving you with about a month + of data entry work

This post has been edited by pandadoodle: 05 September 2011 - 06:58 AM

[WilkoWilko]

Hi Jock and Pandadoole,

thanks for responding

I acually only want to resell e2saves smartphone products. In total this adds up to around 35 different phones models from about 6 different manufacturers. As you have mentioned about the catagories, I would therefor intend to have 6 main catagories for the brands, then 35 sub catagories for the models. I expected to the product information such as details, images and tarrifs to be upload automatically to the magneto product page? If this is the case I dont think this would be too much work? what do you think?

I would also like to know if this is technically possible, because magneto has its own checkout system, but I want the customer to click through the checkout to e2save on the same product page? is this a problem?

If I am correct, this would only take me say a couple of days to sort out, then yes I would just like someone to upload the feed for me.

This post has been edited by WilkoWilko: 05 September 2011 - 09:33 AM

[pandadoodle]

As far as I'm aware (and I can be wrong)

1. The data feed would need to be altered to import into magneto regardless

2. It can just be uploaded then you sort it all via the admin, or sometime can be spent with the .csv so this problem is resolved day one.

3. As for e2save anything is possible just not for £10

EDIT

For 210 products if your not going to set up the feed correct from day 1 you might as well add them now by hand. The whole point of having .csv's from the supplier is to make your life easier if you spend time and money now working the system to your advantage next time a product changes or new one comes out you will not need to pay out again and spend another few days sorting out all the categories.

You just import the new .csv / .xml file and hey presto its all done for you there and then, with one click!

This post has been edited by pandadoodle: 05 September 2011 - 09:47 AM

[WilkoWilko]

ok so if you where to upload the data feed for me, if I only wanted around 35 products in 6 different catagories would this be months of work? or would it only take me a few days? I just want to know what im letting myself in for. So is altering the data feed an easy job? ok so what price do you think would be fair for this?

[pandadoodle]

I thought you said 35 phones from 6 different manufactures so you only got 35 handsets in total?

You don't want to ask me for a price I'm one of the most expensive people on here lol...

Id imagine a solid day to get the feed to work with magento without alterations etc, I've had something similar done in the past where I had a script written that would alter the csv headers online and then import to where they where needed etc

This post has been edited by pandadoodle: 05 September 2011 - 10:00 AM

[WilkoWilko]

sorry pandadoole im getting a little confused. Yes I do only have 35 handsets in total, I didn't think that would be too much work? once the data feed is uploaded. I would end up deleting most of the products in the data feed anyway. The reason I choose to use the data feed is that e2save only have 3 options in thier affiliate scheme, and the data feed option is the only option you can use to create your own site with. So i dont this there is an option to do it by hand?

http://www.e2save.com/affiliate

I do not understand what you mean by the one click? the data feed is available in csv so would that not work. Yes the data feed has to be re uploaded every 24 hours, so if i could do it in one click that would be great. please can you explain this to me?

[pandadoodle]

The data feed has to be uploaded every 24 hours? £10 will not cover what you want it to do.

[WilkoWilko]

yes it has to be uploaded every 24 hours. Is it possible to make this automactic? I dont mind paying more, but i dont know what price someone would normaly charge for this?

[davehalo1]

Yes you could automate the upload of the datafeed but I think what Pandadoodle is getting at is that if you only require a selection of the datafeed you would need to build a script to strip out the data you require and handle any errors generated, then another script to automate the FTP upload of the datafeed.

Essentially meaning this is a lot more work than you think it is and not something that could not be done in 20 minutes for a tenner!

If you want a ball park figure on custom software development such as you have requested, then you won't get much change out of £750.00 a day.

[pandadoodle]

^ bingo bango bongo

[WilkoWilko]

hi davehalo1,

thanyou for your imput that does make more sense to me. However at £750 that is out of my budget. So is their any other cheaper alternative to this? I have also learnt this data feed needs to be uploaded in batches as it is to big to upload by itself

[davehalo1]

I'm not sure about cheaper, that will depend on who you can get to work for you.

But if as stated you now require multiple uploads of the data feed then you've just added more work to the party.

You'll need to look at your business plan and figure out if you are prepared to spend the money in order to get the return you think your investment will generate.

[IWannaDesigner]

WilkoWilko, on 04 September 2011 - 08:30 PM, said:

Ok, I'll admit I did go it for a low price. Time does matter however. What price do you think would be fair for this job?

Dude, time matters to developers too, not only you.
Say your estimate of actual development time being 20 minutes (which is miles off anyway) is actually true, then you've still not taken the full scope of the project into account:
1) Downloading and installing Magento on a local or development server
2) Creating a Magento module based on a dummy module or from scratch
3) Configuring the Magento store to work with the attributes provided in the feed
4) Coding up the script to do the import
5) Setting up the cron job to work daily
6) Modifying Magento to use the E2Save checkout instead of Magento's own checkout
7) Testing
Packaging it all up for delivery to you

And even that's not everything the developer has to do...creating repos and maintaining an accurate revision history, analysing the E2 data feed and all the rest of it.

You can't just assume there's someone sat there on the computer with everything ready who on your go ahead will just write this script for you in 20 minutes. No chance!

If your mate can do it for you within half an hour and is happy to accept £10 then I'd strongly suggest you wait for him and save yourself a lot of money.
Any serious developer knows that the work involved is a hell of a lot more, and yes I can talk from experience because I've done exactly the same thing but from another mobile phone affiliate scheme.
For a proper job you're looking at at least £300 if not more. And then as someone mentioned you've totally changed the spec from a developer perspective so you're looking to pay even more.

Finally, even if it's a 20 minute job, who says that the 20 minutes of developer time is only worth £10? Developers can charge any fee that they think their time time is worth. Someone could be working at £100 an hour which would still mean £30 for 20 minutes of work.

With this kind of thing you're looking at a days work minimum, but like I say, if you've got a mate that can do it in half hour after a couple of weeks...just wait for him.

You could also help me out by telling him to get in touch with me, I've got a lot of pending ideas for Magento modules that I don't have the time to build, but at that rate I'd be really happy to send the work his way.

This post has been edited by IWannaDesigner: 06 September 2011 - 10:37 AM

[WilkoWilko]

Hi Iwannadesigner,

Thankyou for your input,

If I am being honest I think the words have been taken out my mouth, In my first post I literally only wanted the datafeed uploading to my site, nothing more. I was offering £10 for 20 mins work for this. Even pandadoole agreed with me that this would only take 2 mins

"i can import it all in 2min, but ill let you manually sort ALL the products into categories, source the images and so on. Leaving you with about a month + of data entry work" - pandadoodle

Thats why I thought £10 was fair.

It was not me, but pandadoole and davehalo1, that suggested that it would be better making this an automated system. I think you are misunderstanding me for making an offer for £10, for this automated system. That is not the case, I was offering £10 to just upload the feed.

Also, I do agree with you that a developer can charge what they believe thier time to be worth. However developers are restriced to what price they charge, by demand. Who says that a developer who charges £100 is gaining any sales? At some point they may be tempted to charge a lower price when they have no sales coming in? I beleive that somethimes developers have to charge a high price, not because their time is worth that much, but because they have not had any sales in a while just to put food on the table.

However I do agree with you that the automated system would be best and the list you made is probably how it would need to be done. It is just this is out of my budget.

many thanks

This post has been edited by WilkoWilko: 06 September 2011 - 12:30 PM

[IWannaDesigner]

I might be totally wrong here and missing a great trick...but personally I wouldn't believe anyone could do it in 2 minutes...it takes about that long just to download Magento, let alone setup a dev install, create all the attributes you're going to need and go through and add the products in (I'm right in assuming that's what's going to be done?).

Best of luck anyway!

[oakleaves]

WilkoWilko, on 06 September 2011 - 12:22 PM, said:

I beleive that somethimes developers have to charge a high price, not because their time is worth that much, but because they have not had any sales in a while just to put food on the table.

I'm sure you will endear yourself to the members of this forum even further with that comment.

IWannaDesigner, on 06 September 2011 - 10:36 AM, said:

You could also help me out by telling him to get in touch with me, I've got a lot of pending ideas for Magento modules that I don't have the time to build, but at that rate I'd be really happy to send the work his way.

Awesome!

This post has been edited by oakleaves: 06 September 2011 - 02:32 PM

[pandadoodle]

like most ecommerce systems you can upload a csv feed for products and id assume magento has that feature! Opening the .csv and changing the headers and clicking "upload" would not require a developer to download and install it locally if the site is not even live... mountain out of mole hill situation. Although the way the OP wants to do it is wrong if you ask me you should pay out now for the long run.

As for developers one on my books charges over £150 p.h and has work backed up for months I charge around half that rate when a per hour rate is required and I have no trouble getting work in, assumption is the mother of all f....

[MikeChipshop]

WilkoWilko, on 06 September 2011 - 12:22 PM, said:

I beleive that somethimes developers have to charge a high price, not because their time is worth that much, but because they have not had any sales in a while just to put food on the table.

Rubbish!
I know what my normal hourly rate is and it doesn't change. If i need to make more money i work more hours and i work harder!

I think you've already shown on this thread that you have no clue to how the professionals quote so i'd appreciate it if you refrained from insulting us.

This post has been edited by MikeChipshop: 06 September 2011 - 03:11 PM

[pandadoodle]

MikeChipshop, on 06 September 2011 - 03:11 PM, said:

Rubbish!
I know what my normal hourly rate is and it doesn't change.

Lies!!! Don't you add 7.5-15% every year? Cover livings costs? lol nit picking

[MikeChipshop]

pandadoodle, on 06 September 2011 - 03:12 PM, said:

Lies!!! Don't you add 7.5-15% every year? Cover livings costs? lol nit picking

*finger hovers over ban button*

OK Mr pedantic.
It goes without saying that my hourly rate has indeed changed since the first time i charged for a site 12 years ago. It's gone up both to meet inflation and demand.

My hourly rate doesn't change per job.

[pandadoodle]

lol!

[davehalo1]

WilkoWilko, on 05 September 2011 - 10:27 AM, said:

yes it has to be uploaded every 24 hours. Is it possible to make this automactic? I dont mind paying more, but i dont know what price someone would normaly charge for this?

I think you will find you mentioned automating the process first as in the above post, however that is not the issue.

As has been stated if your mate can upload the feed in 20 minutes for a £10.00, then wait for him to return from his holiday.

I think you have a bit more research to do in terms of getting what you want to achieve, I wish you the best of luck.

This post has been edited by davehalo1: 06 September 2011 - 03:39 PM

[IWannaDesigner]

pandadoodle, on 06 September 2011 - 02:43 PM, said:

like most ecommerce systems you can upload a csv feed for products and id assume magento has that feature! Opening the .csv and changing the headers and clicking "upload" would not require a developer to download and install it locally if the site is not even live... mountain out of mole hill situation. Although the way the OP wants to do it is wrong if you ask me you should pay out now for the long run.

As for developers one on my books charges over £150 p.h and has work backed up for months I charge around half that rate when a per hour rate is required and I have no trouble getting work in, assumption is the mother of all f....

So what you're saying is that with no access to the CSV format that Magento can read you'd be able to manipulate the E2 datafeed into something that Magento would successfully parse and deliver it to the client untested under the assumption that you've got it right?

It's not a mountain out of a molehill, it's just a proper job from a spec.

Seems a bit strange that you have no trouble getting work in at £75/hour yet you're happy to work for 2 minutes, which at OP's calculated rate (50p/minute or £30/hour) works out to £1 for the full job!

This post has been edited by IWannaDesigner: 06 September 2011 - 05:15 PM

[pandadoodle]

I've already stated above that id round up the same as anyone else should. So anything less than 60min is charged at a full hour. I've edited plenty of .csv files in the past to upload direct to the main product category menu without any category sorting before hand. Not within magneto but the process would be similar as it is with other platforms.

The spec has changed the more I and others have asked questions. The orignal post was something like :

I want someone to upload products direct to magneto, I will then sort and edit them into the assigned categories.

However on reflect and after a bit of back and forth if the data feed needs to be updated every 24 hours as the OP mentioned then manually uploading them and sorting them every day is going to become more and more of pain and head ache in the long run. Where as was suggested by me and others that creating a custom script that uploads it, sorts and assigns the details on a required basis would be more costly at the get go but would save hours and £££ in the long term.

[IWannaDesigner]

Well if it helps I've attached an example of a CSV file that Magento expects.
I've tried to anyway but it won't let me. Here it is: http://www.mediafire...r0b81uaylp59b2w

This post has been edited by IWannaDesigner: 06 September 2011 - 05:30 PM