How to customize your feeds with channel operators

Now that you've imported your products, subscribed to channels and created your feeds, it's time to get into ShoppingFeeder's powerful customization features. Need to adjust your product title structure for an individual feed? Want to use SKUs as your product IDs on Facebook and MPNs for Share? This is where ShoppingFeeder Channek Operators come in. 

The first step is to head to your Subscribed Channels. Log into your dashboard and go to Feed Management > Channel Management. Then select the Channel Operator icon besides the channel you want to make changes to. 

Now click the Add button.

Here will see your channel operators:

Let's begin with the different operations. 

Select Field 

The field refers to the attribute you wish to change in your feed. This does not refer to just one attribute, but the selected attribute field for each product in the feed. The field drop-down includes:

• id
• brand
• manufacturer
• title
• raw_description
• description
• raw_short_description 
• short_description
• sku
• gtin
• mpn
• weight
• condition
• currency
• price
• sale_price
• tax
• delivery_cost
• availablility
• quantity
• url
• shipping_class 

Select Modifier

This refers to the type of modification you want to make to the selected field. Modifiers include:

• multiply - to multiply value by your input 
• equal - change value to equal your input value 
• uppercase_words - to make a string sentence case 
• standard_replace - replace with a value you enter 
• regex_replace - replace value with an expression 
• template - append fields to the initial field 

Get value from field

Here you will select a field, which tells ShoppingFeeder which field value to look for when making your modifications. The field selections are the same as those in the Select Field drop-down. 

Example 1: Multiply

 Let's say you want to modify the price to include 17% VAT for UK products. Here we can make use of the multiply modifier. We will select the sale_price fields, and multiple the value by 1.17 (this reflects a 17% increase in the current sales price). The operator will look as follows:

Note: This will change all price fields in your feed i.e. for every product. If only want to apply this change to certain products, you can make use of rules. We will explain rules at the end of this article. 

Example 2: Regular Expression Replace

You want to ensure that your product descriptions do not exceed 1000 characters. Here you will need to select the description fields, and use a reg_ex (or regular expression) to limit the number of characters in the description. This example will cut off your description after the 1000th character. 

By leaving the Replace input empty, the description will simply be cut off after the 1000th character and no replacement text will be added. 

Example 3: Template

You want to append your brand name to your product titles. Here you can make use of the template modifier as follows:

Example 4: Standard Replace 

You want to remove promotional text from your product descriptions. A reg_ex replace won't be necessary here. Instead, you can use the simpler standard_replace modifier as shown below.

The operator will find any descriptions with 'on sale today only' and replace it with ' ' 

Be sure to leave the Replace input blank. This tells the operator to remove 'on sale today only' and leave no text in its place. So, if your original product description read "Samsung Galaxy on sale today only" it will now simply read "Samsung Galaxy".

Example with Rules 

You want to adjust your BidorBuy feed so that all products above 200kg and below 1000kg have a shipping_class value of '200kg Plus.' This is similar to adding a custom label, however in this case the channel operator only applies changes to an individual feed. 

You will have to apply a rule to specify products in the relevant weight range. Rules allow you select a field, a format and a comparison, as well as a first and second value. 

Formats:

• number
• string
• regular expression

Comparisons:

• is equal to 
• not equal to
• between
• contains
• in
• does not contain
• empty

Select the Weight field, then Number as your format (since weight is numeric) and the 'between' comparison to create your range. Then enter the lower weight limit in the First Value box, and the upper limit in Second Value.  

As you can see from the examples, channel operators can be customized to your unique needs and there are numerous possibilities. For assistance, don't hesitate to contact support@shoppingfeeder.com .