In order to understand how the shop integration and the product feed work together, I will first remind you how the shop integration with edrone works and what data are transferred thanks to it.
Shop integration with edrone - a reminder
The first source of product information is the correct integration of your online shop with edrone. The integration is responsible for collecting information on events (in other words, sending traces) such as reloading a page, viewing a product, adding a product to a shopping cart, ordering a product, and signing up for a newsletter.
You can find out more about the integration, the data sent and the data collected here.
Each of the events, such as viewing a product, adding it to the shopping cart, or ordering it, must include the product ID or SKUS (sent as product_ids or product_skus - see screen)
If any event receives both product_ids and products_skus at the same time, the priority for the system will be product_ids.
So, based on the screenshot above, the edrone database will store the product receiving: product_ids: 8526
However, your shop's integration may send just product_skus - in which case the values sent in this parameter will be treated as product_ids anyway.
In addition to the product identifier, data such as product title, product URL, product image URL, product categories, and category identifiers are sent.
At this point, it is worth asking the following question - can I operate in the system based solely on the data sent via integration?
The answer is yes, but...
Not all of the available functionalities will work solely on the basis of data from the integration (e.g. Custom Flows, or Marketing Machine recommendation frames)
You will not be able to use prices in dynamic elements
The system will not have information on product availability, so the system may send a message with a currently unavailable product
You will not be able to use the function of adding products to a design by searching by ID or title.
The answer is no if you are using Universal Integration (read more here). In its case, it is necessary to implement a product feed, because data such as title, product URL, and categories are drawn precisely from the product feed.
Time to answer the question posed in the title of this article.
How do the shop integration and the product feed interact?
Once the product feed has been implemented into edrone (and the integration has been carried out), the system will not retrieve product information such as title, product URL, image URL or categories directly from the integration. Only the product identifier, i.e. product_ids or product_skus, will be retrieved directly from the integration.
Such a mechanism of operation is required, among other things, so that the system can collect data on users' activities (which products they browse, add to cart, order), which will be used, among other things, to create product recommendations.
Based on the example above, the system will ignore everything that has been plotted in the screenshot:
These crossed-out data, i.e. title, product URL, image URL, and categories, the system will take from the product feed that has been uploaded to the system. So the system must find a match for product_ids: 8526 (or product_skus: PJ X 1B) from the integration in the product feed.
What does this mean?
It means that detailed product data will be pulled from the product feed, so edrone must have access to it at all times, the file must be up-to-date and it must contain all the products in the shop.
If a product feed was being processed and one day edrone lost access to the file (for example, because access to the application in which the feed was created has expired), the system will still send messages, but based on the product data from the last correct processing of the file. If the feed is deactivated or deleted, the system will return to using the data sent in events from the store.
Do you need additional help?
If you have any additional questions about the product feed, please contact us at hello@edrone.me.