Extending existing products

When you want to extend a product with additional information you simply send the product information you have with an existing product identifier.

The extended information can be anything; an additional language, an extra product code or picture references.

Adding a new text field

<mediablob customerID="1143" customerIDType="ShoppaID" createDate="2018-05-12T00:00:00" schemaVersion="1.7" xmlns="http://shoppa.com/mediablobSchema">
  <products>
    <product id="65467-14" idType="Code1">
      <texts>
        <text languageCode="en-GB">
          <field name="infoshort">Manufactured in Sweden by the respected brand Orrefors.</field>
        </text>
      </texts>
    </product>
  </products>
</mediablob>

You can also reference the product by its ean code instead, by replacing the first line with <product id="123456789012" idType="EAN13">. As you see, any code can be used as long as it is unique to the product.

Adding a new language

Continuing on the section Extending product information, English could have been added to the existing product by sending only this xml:

<mediablob customerID="1143" customerIDType="ShoppaID" createDate="2018-05-12T00:00:00" schemaVersion="1.7" xmlns="http://shoppa.com/mediablobSchema">
  <products>
    <product id="65467-14" idType="Code1">
      <texts>
        <text productName="Champagne glass" brand="Orrefors" languageCode="en-GB">
          <field name="sashort"><![CDATA[Exclusive Twin-pack, the perfect wedding present.]]></field>
          <field name="salong"><![CDATA[Efva Attling is a designer of jewellery who has now brought her considerable experience and skills to the creation of glass. The third glass of the collection is a more masculine martini glass whose silver ring, though slightly sterner than its cousins, expresses the same warm sentiments.]]></field>
          <field name="unit">item</field>
        </text>
      </texts>
    </product>
  </products>
</mediablob>

As you see, adding a field or an entire extra language is essentially the same. Just reference the product by its identifier and add the missing information.

Overloading product information

As stated initially, all products at a top customer node are available to all children. This means there is usually no need to add products at a store level. Instead the products are added to the HQ node or any branch-nodes in between HQ and the stores used for segmentation of information.

In some instances a store or branch-node needs to replace a certain part of a product. This is achieved by sending the same kind of update mentioned above, but for another customerId. Customer id´s are defined in the SOAP metadata and described in detain in a later chapter.