Which addon for google base / google products / google merchant center

[snack]

I see there are several addons that generate feeds for Froogle/GoogleBase/Google Products/ whatever they're calling it nowadays:

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/seo/1768-google-merchant-center.html
http://addons.prestashop.com/en/comparison-shopping-prestashop/1585-google-shopping.html
http://addons.prestashop.com/en/comparison-shopping-prestashop/1615-google-shopping.html

I've read of others too. I also see that they vary widely in price. Unfortunately, documentation is pretty brief in prestashops addon marketplace, so I can't really tell the difference between them.

Anyone else want to weigh in on what works, what's worth paying extra for, what's outdated/no-longer-supported, etc??

[badger1010]

I use this one:
Googlebase feed

[Pippo3000]

I see there are several addons that generate feeds for Froogle/GoogleBase/Google Products/ whatever they're calling it nowadays:

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/seo/1768-google-merchant-center.html
http://addons.prestashop.com/en/comparison-shopping-prestashop/1585-google-shopping.html
http://addons.prestashop.com/en/comparison-shopping-prestashop/1615-google-shopping.html

I've read of others too. I also see that they vary widely in price. Unfortunately, documentation is pretty brief in prestashops addon marketplace, so I can't really tell the difference between them.

Anyone else want to weigh in on what works, what's worth paying extra for, what's outdated/no-longer-supported, etc??

I use this for googlebase http://www.prestashop-module.de/interfaces/63-moussiq-exportmodul-fur-produkt-und-preissuchmaschinen.html
the module itself is free and very powerful as you can set various output scenarios, exporting the fields you need. they offer preconfigured export templates for various services incl googlebase at a marginal cost but you can also easily build these export templates yourself and save them in your BO as google clearly states what is needed for the import of your products.

phil

[David Niry]

Hello,

I am the author of the Google Merchant Center module: http://addons.prestashop.com/en/seo/1768-google-merchant-center.html

I can say one thing: the 2 other Google Shopping modules are currently based on one country and currency per language. So if you sell in the US and UK, which are both English, you have to choose one, you can't do USD and GBP. Not so with GMC, as it has Google's language => countries => currency model built in from the start.

Google Merchant Center, as of today, is also the only one to include a file with dynamic "on-the-fly" PHP output so you can set your automatic feed updates even if your host does not let you set up a CRON task on their server.

It has an uncap (remove excessive use of UPPERCASE) in product titles. For those merchants who use a lot of caps in their product name, Google will refuse those products. This nice feature avoids having to change all your titles in your shop.

Oh, one last thing... GMC has been tested and is compatible on v1.4.0.7 and also takes advantage of the new "product condition" feature that comes in v1.4 when the stable version gets released

If anyone is interested, please PM me and include your e-mail, and I will send you the documentation which is included with the module, so you can see what you get.

Best Regards,

-David

[mpauk]

Using the free one i get this error when trying to view the created googlebase xml file

XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location:
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^

what am i doing wrong?

[David Niry]

It looks like your feed is empty. No output at all. Did you generate the file in the moduel config ? Did you see any error messages on update ?

[mpauk]

in config it stats Feed file successfully generated

[David Niry]

Strange... I also used the Googlebase free one before I built my own module, and it worked at least as far as generating the XML file.

Are you sure your googlebase.xml file has write permissions ? (using your FTP software, you should set file permissions to 0777 / give write permissions to all).

[mpauk]

sorry silly mistake to make it now gives a full feed, thanks for your help

[David Niry]

I'm glad I could help

Best Regards,

-David

[Daan Tol]

I was looking for a good google base feed >> thanks to this thread I found the best/cheapest one!

http://prestashop-module.de/lang-en/schnittstellen/63-moussiq-exportmodul-fur-produkt-und-preissuchmaschinen.html

It took me half an hour to configure it , but now all the products are being read into the google shopping base! The configuration time was due to my first time creating a feed....

thanks !!

cost me 5 euro......

This can be used for a lot more productfeeds! woohoo

[DFW Products]

is anyone going to update one in the core or has this turned into a money making project, prestashop I mean. 50 euro is kinda high for one lic.

[noesac]

Hi can you please update this module to include Australia?

I really need this asap but I just noticed it only works for GB and US!!

[David Niry]

Hi noesac,

I will reply to your PM and send you an update directly. The module update will soon be uploaded on Addons.

For others, this can be easily fixed in the module on line 36. Change:

'en' => array('GB' => 'GBP', 'US' => 'USD'),

to

'en' => array('GB' => 'GBP', 'US' => 'USD', 'AU' => 'AUD'),

[noesac]

Thanks so much for that, I really appreciate just how quickly you were able to turn that around!! Excellent customer service!!

[rkinfo]

I can't get prestashop to generate Titles for the feeds. Your Note said
"a country's feed will only be generated if the country's language and official currency are installed and active on your shop"
US Currency and US Dollars are installed but the title is not getting generated.
Thoughts?

[David Niry]

Hello rkinfo,

Thank you for your message. I'm the last one left in the office and leaving in a few minutes for the week-end, so I won't be able to help you until Monday. In the meantime, please PM me or e-mail dniry [{at}] businesstech [{dot}] fr with a link to your shop and Google Merchant Center feed (XML) file. I will take a look and help you get up and running ASAP on Monday.

Also, be sure to have the latest version installed (1.1.4). If this is not the case, please uninstall the module, download the latest from Addons and re-install it. Thank you.

Best Regards,

-David

[rkinfo]

Right on. Thanks

[Timothy Jarman]

I would defiantly recommend David Nirys google merchant. We have been using it for over a week now and it has been a breeze.

Installation was simple, considering there is quite a bit to do, because you must signup to google base, then configure everything, Davids instructions were clear and very easy to follow.

I did have one technical problem which was resolved extremely quickly and professionally.

It was money well spent, as my products are now listed on google shopping

Top class

[merlin-1]

is anyone going to update one in the core or has this turned into a money making project, prestashop I mean. 50 euro is kinda high for one lic.

 

Seriously. Is prestashop going to fix the built in modual? This is a pretty important function. So the fact that's its not been addressed at all it seems is pretty disappointing. Maybe less work on making the boxes look all pretty and maybe more an actual functions that are important for sales?

 

$80 USD for this modual is too much, no offense to developer. I'm sure its worth it no doubt. But this is not something that should be considered an "add-on"...

[SonnyBoyII]

Hello,

I am the author of the Google Merchant Center module: http://addons.presta...ant-center.html

I can say one thing: the 2 other Google Shopping modules are currently based on one country and currency per language. So if you sell in the US and UK, which are both English, you have to choose one, you can't do USD and GBP. Not so with GMC, as it has Google's language => countries => currency model built in from the start.

Google Merchant Center, as of today, is also the only one to include a file with dynamic "on-the-fly" PHP output so you can set your automatic feed updates even if your host does not let you set up a CRON task on their server.

It has an uncap (remove excessive use of UPPERCASE) in product titles. For those merchants who use a lot of caps in their product name, Google will refuse those products. This nice feature avoids having to change all your titles in your shop.

Oh, one last thing... GMC has been tested and is compatible on v1.4.0.7 and also takes advantage of the new "product condition" feature that comes in v1.4 when the stable version gets released

If anyone is interested, please PM me and include your e-mail, and I will send you the documentation which is included with the module, so you can see what you get.

Best Regards,

-David

 

 

Hi David,

 

Does it work for a shop with 7 000 products in 3 000 categories?? Prestashop vesion 1.4.4.1

[David Niry]

Hi, so far the largest shop using the module has over 28,000 products.

 

The 3000 categories might be a problem when you will have to match them to the Google categories. You may need to do some batch updates directly in the database via phpMyAdmin, otherwise it will be a lit of work to do them one by one !

 

Best Regards,

 

David

[airbag]

I had some issues with this module and so contacted the developer.

He responded quickly and was very helpful with support. Although this is what you expect with a commercial product, you do not always receive.. and the prestashop add-ons communication system does seem clunky at the best of times.

 

Anyhow, I would purchase again from this developer because the support was very good, and problem turned out to be my configuration settings rather than the module!

 

Thanks David.

[David Niry]

Thank you ! Your kind feedback is much appreciated

 

Best of luck and wishing you plenty of sales !

[DFW Products]

seems the dev team is not as focused on developing an out of the box ready to use cart as they are at module based and making a cash cow for programers. Google Base is a basic need for any ecom success, as well as payment gateways and shipping gateways. To use Prestashop I had to buy my payment gateway "twice" because of an update and the person who wrote the gateway module would not support the upgrade once prestashop released 1.4 . So I had to buy their module for 1.4 also. Then I paid for a UPS module which stopped working with the last update and I cant get the module programmer to email me back on how to resolve the issue. And we have google base and the latest updates to their program which prestashop has not addressed.

 

Prestashop is / was my platform of choice but I cant afford to keep dumping money into modules several times over. I would vote for an out of the box platform with the dev team building these costly modules as part of the core system and maybe charging a lic fee to buy it. A reasonable fee not getting all stupid like cube cart did, but reasonable remembering we use open source to help save money and if we wanted to or could afford 700 USD we would not buy an open source cart. Prestashop in on the right track, just simply ignoring some key functions in the process, I am currently testing Open Cart and Tomato Cart both of which have the above modules built in the core system. I still much prefer Prestacart but damn I need a break from entering my credit card numbers to buy these modules every time the dev team does an update.

[jbblanc]

Hi Folks

I have installed David Niry's module Google Merchant Center and it works really well. Now awaiting for Google to accept my feed which seems the most difficult part !!

But most important, in this Prestashop Modules jungle, David ALWAYS answered to my questions, VERY QUICKLY and efficiently.

Would all prestashop module developpers behave like that, using Prestashop modules would become a real pleasure.

Thanks David

[PrestaMagic]

This is great to hear. I don't have a lot of time and "free" modules are not generally "free" - they can take a lot of time and energy, when what you need to do is solve a business problem without spending a lot of your precious programming hours doing so.

 

Any of us in the modules bidness should be like I've heard you are, David.

[David Niry]

Thanks for the nice feedback everyone !

 

Some quick updates while I'm at it. Through our clients, we have discovered 2 bugs, one related to installations with CDN turned on for images, and another with the CRON update on some versions of PrestaShop.

 

Note that, with our GMC module, CRON is only necessary for shops with large catalogs. Smaller catalogs (under 3000 - 5000 products) can use the "on the fly output" file as their URL to Google, making CRON unnecessary.

 

Anyway, the next release will fix these issues, and we will also revamp the Google Product Categories management system. Some great functionality coming up ! Top Secret for now though...

 

A great week-end to all !

[DFW Products]

David

I have no doubt that your module works and is probably one of the better modules for this but dont you think the module is a bit over priced for an add-on. 82.00 US Dollars seems high to me for a module. I typically pay around 20 to 30 for add-ons. It seems the coders who take time to make these modules and take pride in their work should be rewarded.

 

However, we have to take the fate that tomato cart just indured as a warning. When you build a cart and off said cart for free. Then allow coders to make essintual add-ons and set them at rediculas high prices it, in time will cause the cart to fail because people find other means to get their stores seen.

 

Tomato cart is a prime example of a free cart trying to make its money on the back end and today it has failed. A great cart, beats prestashop hands down but with over priced modules and way over priced templating has cause that cart to fail and people to jump ship and now they sit with only two programmers and nothing getting done so users are jumping to other carts.

 

Just a thought...

[David Niry]

Dear DFW,

 

I completely understand your point of view. And I agree the overly priced modules for an open source solution may compromise it.

 

However, in this particular case, I can assure you the 60 euros is worth every penny with the kind of support you'll get. As many clients I have personnally helped can testify, understanding all the requirements Google now places on merchants to get their feed accepted makes it very difficult to get everything to work properly, even with a fully functional module such as ours.

 

Many times, it means having to add certain pieces of data in the produt input forms, or making some bulk updates in the database because of missing supplier codes and so forth... And the merchants always turn to us for help, thinking it is a problem with the module. So we have to get their login, test, check, e-mail back with what they need to do to fix the problem... they e-mail back with another problem... etc...

 

Average time spent doing free support on this module is about 20 - 30 mn... And we spend a lot of time developing it to stay up with Google's pace.

 

At a lower price than this, we would start losing money. It would no longer be feasible and therefore we would rather drop the project. By the way, the PrestaShop one is selling for 100€ instead of our 60€... ;-)

 

The same is true for our Facebook PS Shop Tab module. People always get confused with how to create the Facebook App and link it to their page... Even with detailed documentation with screenshots.

 

It's not just the module you're paying for, it's about making sure you get something that works for you and where you'll not spend hours with no one to help trying to figure out what is wrong. As someone said, not all module developers act like we do, but in our case, I guarantee you'll get your money's worth

 

I also highly recommend all the modules by Presta-Module (Advanced Top Menu, Ads & Slideshow, Advanced Search 4 etc...). Their support is world-class as well.

 

And one last thing: how much is getting good placement on Google Shopping worth to you ? For any average merchant, the investment will quickly be paid off.

 

A great week-end to all,

 

-D

[David Niry]

A quick demonstration:

 

1) My [spam-filter]'s shop is Arthus & Co - http://www.arthusandco.com (English version available ) - she operates it all by herself from our home

2) Competitors smallable and littlefashiongallery are about 50 to 100 times our size in terms of both financial means and sales volume

 

Now, look at this search for a very popular baby clothing brand in France, Bobo Choses:

 

http://www.google.fr...s=vw:l&tbm=shop

 

Enough said... ;-)

[Timothy Jarman]

You pay for what you get, and i must say i am extremely impressed with David's support.

 

I brought his module quite some time ago and when ever I have needed help, or whenever I have asked for something to be implemented, his support and response time have been fanastic.

 

The module works brilliantly and has many features which for a serious business owner who wants to increase his business using google shopping, this module is the one for you.

 

10/10

[franz1386]

Hi David, thank you for your module...it works good!

By the way, i need to add some default informations to the feed ( to all the products in the feed! ), this informations are brand and google category....and then i need to delete the GTIN because my products don't need it!

Then i need also to specify the UTF-8 charset in the feed....

Could someone explain me how to modify the PHP file in order to optain these things?

Thank you very much!

Francesco