In the world I work in on a daily basis, the CPG world, one thing is for sure: The way consumers get their CPG items is changing. While a vast majority of consumers still shop for toilet paper and toothpaste at their local Supercenter, more and more shoppers are finding that with a little planning, they can get the same goods without leaving their homes, and various online startups and established retailers and CPG manufacturers want to make it possible.

In the past I have written about Alice.com, a newer site dedicated to selling CPG directly to consumers. The whole idea behind Alice is to give CPG manufacturers a way to sell directly to consumers, and give consumers a convenient way to purchase those necessities on a regular schedule. Alice.com has enjoyed lots of positive press which has propelled interest, not to mention the company was founded by a couple of internet veterans with a successful track record.

Big online retailers have begun to transform their own online offerings, typically filled with higher ticket items like electronics, and added lower priced CPG items. Recently, Amazon.com has increased it efforts to bring on board CPG manufacturers to round out their offerings online. Walmart.com, who until very recently didn’t sell lower priced CPG items online, has begun to sell multi-packs of lower priced items to make them more viable to online shoppers who aren’t looking to pay $6 shipping for an item priced $2.99. Now you can buy a pack of 3 items, for example, to make your cart-to-shipping-cost ratio more acceptable. Target is in the middle of a major online redesign, so look for them to come at swinging on CPG items too when their new store comes online in 2011.

Sales and Marketing teams at major retailers aren’t the only one’s with their eye on the direct-to-consumer CPG sales. As a not-so-sublte push back on retailers who are exerting more and more control over CPG companies, the largest CPG manufacturer in the world, Proctor & Gamble, is dipping their big toe into the direct-to-consumer waters as well. Recently, P&G announced a ‘test’ where they would sell direct to consumers to try to learn about consumer buying habits for their brands, and all learnings would be shared with their retailers. Personally, I think what’s really happening is an experiment to see how viable selling direct to consumers is for them. If it proves successful, look for the ‘test’ to continue. The question remains how much P&G want to invest in their fulfillment operations to facilitate these sales, but most likely they will leave that to a third party to figure out if they ever get to the point where it becomes a viable sales channel for them.

Stay tuned as the race heats up to sell everyday items online. It could get interesting.

I decided that because of the potentially massive amount of data in my dropshipper’s XML feed file, that I should save the file to my server before attempting to process any data. I set up a cron job to use CURL to fetch the file. First I created a file called ‘importproducts.php’ and added the following code:

importproducts.php

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//my dropshipper's feed URL - replace with your dropshipper's feed
$myFeed = 'http://www.mydropshipperssite.com/feedurl.xml';
 
// specify the name of the file you want to save
$myFilename = 'product_feed.xml';
 
 
	if ($myFeed != '') {
	//  Initialize the cURL session
	$ch = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $myFeed);
	//Create a new file
	$fp = fopen($myFilename, 'w');
	// Save to file
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
	// Execute the cURL session
	curl_exec ($ch);
	//Close cURL session and file
	curl_close ($ch);
	fclose($fp);
 
	echo "Feed Imported Successfully!";
 
 
		//check the file size - if its 0 then my dropshipper didn't provide any updates, so don't let me know
		if (filesize($myFilename) > 0) {
 
			// send email to me when executed
			$to = "youremail@yourdomain.com";
			$subject = "Feed Imported";
			$body = "Hi,\n\nThe latest product data for YOURSITE has been downloaded on ";
			$body .= date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A')."\n\n File Size: ".filesize($myFilename) . " bytes";
 
				if (mail($to, $subject, $body)) {
				  echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
					 } else {
				 echo("<p>Message delivery failed...</p>");
				}
 
		}
 
 
	}

Now that we have this script written, we need to process the data. Before that, let me show you an example of the xml data I am working with in the xml file we just saved with the import script. Here is sample xml:

product_feed.xml

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<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<products>
<product sku="15569" mfg_part_number="405970-1" upc="082324027055">
<inventory quantity="13"/>
<price your_price="143.18" list="159.99"/>
<description short="A product description"/>
</product>
 
<product sku="16128" mfg_part_number="406350-1" upc="082324029301">
<inventory quantity="0"/>
<price your_price="128.18" list="149.99"/>
<description short="Another product description"/>
</product>
</products>

Now we can talk about the next file, the one that takes the XML data and uses it to update products in Magento via the API. We’ll name this file ‘processupdates.php’.

processupdates.php

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//include the Magento API file - replace with your server path to the file
require_once('/some/path/to/public_html/app/Mage.php');
 
// ***** Configuration ******
$myDomain = 'http://www.yourdomain.com';
$myAPILogin = 'username';
$myAPIKey = 'password';
 
//calculate the price markup - useful if you have a standard markup you apply
$myMarkUp = .30;
$defaultMarkup = .30;
 
// get my saved file name
$myFilename = 'product_feed.xml';
 
//load up local xml file for processing
$feed_xml = simplexml_load_file($myFilename);
 
// Begin SOAP Requests
$client = new SoapClient($myDomain.'/api/?wsdl');
$session = $client->login($myAPILogin, $myAPIKey);
 
$updatedProducts = "";
 
//some counters - counting loops this way lets me see and set where the count increments
$x = 0;
 
//some filter date to pass to the API - add more to filter your results further - see Magento API docs
$filterData = array('type'=>'simple');
 
//get all my database products into an array
$products = $client->call($session, 'catalog_product.list', array($filterData));
 
 
//loop through my product array
foreach ($products as $product) {
 
echo "Starting product loop...<br/><br/>";
 
 
//get my database product sku - for cleaner reference in the code
$mysku = $product['sku']
 
//search directly in the product sku attribute in the xml for my sku
$res = $feed_xml->xpath("//product[@sku='$mysku']");
 
 
// if we find one, lets process it
if(!empty($res)) {
 
	//matched - make updates
	echo "Matched: ".$mysku;
 
	//price updates
	if ($res[0]->price['list'] != '') {
		$newprice = $res[0]->price['your_price'] + (($res[0]->price['list'] - $res[0]->price['your_price'])*$myMarkUp);
	} else {
		$newprice = $res[0]->price['your_price'] + ($res[0]->price['your_price']*$defaultMarkup);
	}
 
	//build my array to pass to the magento API
	$fieldPriceData = array('cost'=>$res[0]->price['your_price']*1, 'price'=>$newprice, 'upc'=>$res[0]->product['upc']);
	//update magento with price data
	$client->call($session, 'catalog_product.update', array($product['sku'], $fieldPriceData));
 
	//qty and stock updates
	if (($res[0]->inventory['quantity']*1) != 0) {
		$fieldQtyData = array('qty'=>$res[0]->inventory['quantity']*1, 'is_in_stock'=>1);
		echo "In Stock<br/>";
	} else {
		$fieldQtyData = array('qty'=>$res[0]->inventory['quantity']*1, 'is_in_stock'=>0);
		echo "Out of Stock<br/>";
	}
 
	//update magento with quantity and stock data
	$client->call($session, 'product_stock.update', array($product['sku'], $fieldQtyData));
 
	//record the updated product for emailing later
	$updatedProducts .= "SKU: ".$mysku." - ".$res[0]->description['short']."\nPrice: ".$newprice."\nCost: ".$res[0]->price['your_price']."\nQty: ".$res[0]->inventory['quantity']."\n\n";
 
	//increment my counter
	$x = $x + 1; 
 
} else {
 
echo "no match<br/><br/>";
 
}
 
 
 
// send mail to me
$to = "you@yourdomain.com";
$subject = "Feed Processed";
$body = "Hi,\n\nThe latest data for ".$myDomain." has been processed on ".date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A')."\n\n";
$body .= "Products Updated: ".$x."\n\n".$updatedProducts;
if (mail($to, $subject, $body)) {
  echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
	 } else {
 echo("<p>Message delivery failed...</p>");
}

Now all you need to do is set up the cron jobs to call your import file at one interval, and your process file at another interval. Note that this works for me because I have a limited number of database products. If you have thousands of products you might want to have your site updating products by category, for example. If anyone has any better ideas on how to do any of this, please let me know. I always like to learn new stuff!

Download Files: Magento API XML Import - 15.82 KB - 191 Downloads

I may be getting ahead of myself, but 1-800-Flowers has made a large step forward in world of online retail, and I suspect this will open a floodgate of other retailers setting up boutiques in the ‘Facebook Mall’. Lots of major retailers already have fan pages on Facebook, and I suspect a lot of online decision makers for these companies will be watching this play closely and at least begin cost analysis and research for developing their own stores on Facebook.

To me, this seems like a great opportunity for a company like Alice.com, whose sole focus is to bring CPG goods direct to customers from manufacturers, to create a version of their site on facebook, allowing Facebookers to order their toothpaste and toiler paper before logging off for the night. Think about it: I’m on facebook, checking my messages and taking the latest quiz 27 of my other friends have taken, and I get a message in my inbox from AliceBot, who nicely reminds me that based on my purchase history of toothpaste of the last 3 months on Alice.com, that I should re-order toothpaste because I am probably running low. It also suggests 5 other items to add to my order so I can checkout with Free Shipping. But instead of sending me to Alice.com, they direct me to the Facebook Alice Store, where my ‘cart’ has already been prepared for me, because I connected my Alice.com account and Facebook accounts previously with Facebook Connect. I’m ready to checkout, so I whip out the credit card and place my order. I then proceed to look at a few of my friends photos and log off. No need to leave facebook for everything I need to do on the internet.