General Terms

Price comparison websites

A comparison shopping website, called also price comparison website, comparison shopping agent or comparison shopping engine, is a vertical search engine that shoppers use to filter and compare products based on price, features, and other criteria. Most comparison shopping websites aggregate product listings from many different retailers but do not directly sell products themselves, as Selling channels  do.

Products are usually submitted in the form of XML or CSV files (called Feed, see below). Sometimes the API integration is available.

Selling channels - online marketplaces

Selling channel is an e-commerce website offering products to customers on behalf of affiliated retailers and merchants. A typical example of Selling channel may be the Amazon channel. Purchase transactions are realized directly on the website of selling channel and merchants are subsequently notified about that and are required to process it from back-office of given selling channel.

Selling channels offer usually comprehensive API allowing deep integration on the product, order, stock and customer level with merchants' e-commerce platform.

Affiliate networks

An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers (affiliates) and advertisers (merchant) affiliate programs. It allows website publishers to easily find and participate in affiliate programs which are suitable for their website (and thus generate income from those programs) and allows websites offering affiliate programs (typically online merchants) to reach a larger audience by promoting their affiliate programs to all of the publishers participating in the affiliate network.

Traditional affiliate networks enable merchants to offer publishers a share of any revenue that is generated by the merchant from visitors to the publisher's site, or a fee for each visitor on the publisher's site that completes a specific action (making a purchase, registering for a newsletter, etc.).The majority of merchant programs have a revenue share model, as opposed to a fee-per-action model typical for product search and price comparison websites.

Feed Terms

Feed

Feed is a term generally used for XML, CSV or TXT file required by a channel.

Koongo distinguishes two basic types of Feeds:

• Public feed - This kind of feeds is useful for many customers and merchants and a typical example could be Google Shopping, Shopzilla, Twenga, and many others.
• Private feed - This kind of feeds is usually owned by only one customer. Koongo can create your Private feed as a custom modification under the Custom Feed Layout. A typical example of Private feed can be XML/CSV file required by clients' advertising system or clients' partners.
  
  For simple feed creation, there is the custom feed layout option available:

1. 1. Koongo as a Service -  Custom Channel Layout Setup
   2. Connector for Magento - Custom Feed Layout Setup
   3. Connector for Magento 2 - Custom Feed Layout Setup M2

Feed layout/template

Feed layout represents the structure of XML/CSV/TXT file defined by the specific channel. Although you do not need to take care about Feed layout, since  Feed layout is generated automatically based on selected Feed, in some special cases it is necessary or suitable to modify the Feed layout according to needs of given channel. 

For this purpose is included Attributes mapping feature that gives you enough freedom when it is necessary.

<SHOPITEM>
	<PRODUCT>Orange t-shirt with Koongo logo</PRODUCT>
	<DESCRIPTION>Simply must have t-shirt! Having Koongo t-shirt you became irresistible!</DESCRIPTION>
	<URL>https://store.nostresscommerce.com/xml-feed-export.html</URL>
	<ITEM_TYPE>new</ITEM_TYPE>
	<DELIVERY_DATE>1</DELIVERY_DATE>
	<IMGURL>https://store.nostresscommerce.com/skin/frontend/default/nostress-xmlfeed/images/logo.png</IMGURL>
	<PRICE>100</PRICE>
	<PRICE_VAT>120</PRICE_VAT>
</SHOPITEM>

Feed type

Koongo distinguishes between two Feed types:

• Product type - This type of XML/CSV/TXT file contains complete product data.

• Inventory type - This type of XML/CSV/TXT file usually contains on product IDs, information about availability and stock.

Feed taxonomy

Some channels provide own category structure which offers more accurate product placement in the channel catalog. Koongo offers built-in functionality for the category mapping.

Feed collection

Under the Feed Collection term is meant a collection of Feeds that usually represents a set of Feeds supported and operating in a given country. For the Koongo Connector for Magento/Magento 2 license, the first Feed Country Collection is included in the connector price.

Country collections contain all the supported feeds operating in the given country and this is the collection you have to define in order details of the Koongo connector - e.g. DE country feed collection.

Additional Collection

The other Collections can be purchased under the Additional Collection option.

Unlimited Channels

The Unlimited Channels option offers you access to all Koongo supported channels.

Additional Channel 

The is also Additional Channel option which gives you access to all feeds related to the selected channel - e.g. if you buy Google as Additional Channel, you will get all available Google feed templates for all countries.