November 23, 2012 at 18:45Placement of goods on Yandex.Market. Common problems and their solutions
I must say that I, as an author, are primarily interested in practice (benefit in practical application). Accordingly, I strive to describe only those things that I personally encounter. Now I am developing the online glasses store, and decided to share my experience of placing goods on Yandex.Market.
This article is intended for managers , web developers and owners of online stores.planning to place goods on Yandex.Market. The material contains information about typical problems, the specifics of sorting goods by Yandex.Market categories and the latest troubles. It is curious that the availability and technical correctness of the Price List (in a special YML format) does not guarantee that the entire list of products presented in it will be shown to users when searching. The owner of an online store may not realize for a long time that the nth part of his product offers is hidden from potential buyers. This material will help to get an idea of what pitfalls can be expected in the way of placing goods in Yandex.Market, and how to deal with it. The article features some prices for placing goods on Yandex.Market and discusses options for cooperation (technical support services or a personal manager). The article contains small pieces of code for debugging a YML file.
To be placed in the Yandex.Market system, you need to prepare a Price List in YML (vs XML) format in advance for broadcasting the goods presented in your online store. The specification of such a YML file can be found on Yandex pages, in the Market section. If the online store is based on a CMS that is not adapted for the needs of placing goods on Yandex.Market (as a rule, this is exactly the case), the script for generating the YML file will need to be written manually. An example of practical and step-by-step development of such a file is an article from my blog's YML file for broadcasting goods on Yandex.Market (script for osCommerce 2.3) . In this article, I will periodically refer to this script when writing code.
After we have a ready-made script for the YML file on our site, you need to fill out a number of fields - the so-called. "Placement options." The link for registering a new store is here: partner.market.yandex.ru/pre/index.xml (not to be confused with Yandex.Webmaster - Goods and prices). Placement options include: price list (link to a YML file from your site; you can download a YML file from your computer, but you will have to update it once every 15 days); delivery information (regions, cost); legal information (legal info must be posted on your site - you have to specify the address of the page), a valid phone number for receiving orders (Yandex employees will call back to this number trying to order any of the goods from you), etc. After that we send Price list for verification.
Even if the script itself is correctly written, a number of errors may occur, for example, with the address of the product image, or with duplicate goods. There was a case when they called me (apparently, being guided by the materials of my blog and using the provided contact phone number) with a request to tell what could be wrong with the images, because This error was indicated in Yandex.Market tech support.
An error with the output of images is most often due to the fact that the names of images uploaded to the site may use invalid characters (for example, a space). In order to convert such names into a URL digestible for Yandex, it is enough to use the corresponding php function rawurlencode. We are looking for a code fragment in which the output of the URL of the catalog image is performed. In my script for OsCommerce 2.3, this is the following segment: We add the rawurlencode url encoding function. Thus, the code for outputting a picture from the catalog will look something like this:
What to do with takes? Mistakes with duplicate products are significantly less critical. They appear due to the fact that you use the same name / the same main picture in the representation of 2 (or more) products. So, if you have the same model, but of different colors, it’s enough to assign a color (blue, black), etc. to its name, and also replace the main image of such a product with the corresponding photo.
Payments on Yandex.Market are made by clicks. CPCs - 1.5 rubles (0.05 cu) for books and 3 rubles. (0,1 cu) for all other goods. However, to work with Yandex.Market you need to make a down payment. Here Yandex.Market offers 2 options for cooperation:
Thus, we can say that when serving with a personal manager you lose nothing (the entire amount of the contribution goes only to clicks), however, you get good advantages for starting, and it is at this stage that the main questions and troubles arise. It should be noted that working with a personal manager is possible for a longer period than the first month, however, at the same time, your monthly expense should exceed 21 thousand rubles, which you must specifically “catch up” with (for example, overpriced click rates), my opinion does not make sense.
Being quite scrupulous people (if not meticulous), - both I and the site owner (Customer), we asked for a long time and thoroughly about where these 9 thousand would go, and finally we were convinced of the rationality of working with a personal manager , calculating that this amount is quite justified, even if you just take it offhand for 100 clicks per day (300 rubles per day = 9000 per month). Taking this opportunity, I would like to share in advance my general impression of the Yandex.Market team (which remained very positive), and praise our personal manager, Natalya Malakhova, for her professionalism and attention.
So, you passed the check of the Price list, with the photo cards of the goods, everything is fine with you, paid the fee, and your online store turned out to be “on”. You even have an overview of the "Published Offers." You would be ready to relax, if you had not managed to make a couple of key queries on Yandex.Market in the hope of seeing your products. However, for most requests, they are completely absent, while for others they are represented in a scanty amount. In addition, for some reason, all of your vision glasses that the search gives out are in sunglasses (which in itself is wrong). More surprising. When communicating with the manager, it turns out that most of your products fell into categories such as “Sandals”, “Men's Shoes”, “Underpants”, etc. According to the manager’s reasonable assumption, these products are missingin the search for key queries. Such inconsistencies are quite typical. For example, Natalya told the story of how baskets fell into the category of "Pools" - on the grounds that they are round.
Let's see what happens.
According to our personal manager, Yandex.Market automatically sortes goods by categories according to a number of signs. Moreover, the search in Yandex.Market is carried out according to the same criteria, and not solely by the name of the product. The names of our products looked like this: "Buy Emporio Armani 9730 ATG men's glasses." The use of the word “buy” in the name is unacceptable for the Market, and Natalya was surprised how we passed the quality control (CCM) in general. The bottom line is that the names should be urgently redirected. To manually rewrite them on the site would be an epic task (talking about hundreds of positions). It’s much easier to fix them in the YML file itself by replacing stable combinations (here it is “Buy men's glasses ...”, “Buy women's glasses ...", "Buy children's glasses ...", etc.) . In addition, we must be featured when looking for frames, therefore, the word "frames" will need to be added. We are looking for a code fragment that is responsible for displaying the name of the product. In my script, these are the following lines:
We replace stable combinations using the php function str_replace: As a result, all names of the form “Buy men's glasses Emporio Armani 9730 ATG” are replaced by the view: “Men's glasses (frame) Emporio Armaеi 9730 ATG”. Subsequently, our products were successfully classified by Yandex.Market in the necessary categories: Optics - Glasses - Frames. When searching for key queries, everything is fine too.
Recommendations in the end. In order to get into the right category on Yandex.Market, and also to successfully appear in Yandex.Market search results for key queries, check in advance the names of your products with the already published offers of competitors participating in the search results for the right queries. In our case, these were offers of the form “Eyeglass frame [brand] [model] ...”. It is not necessary to completely copy such names, it is enough to observe the typicality of combinations.
This article is intended for managers , web developers and owners of online stores.planning to place goods on Yandex.Market. The material contains information about typical problems, the specifics of sorting goods by Yandex.Market categories and the latest troubles. It is curious that the availability and technical correctness of the Price List (in a special YML format) does not guarantee that the entire list of products presented in it will be shown to users when searching. The owner of an online store may not realize for a long time that the nth part of his product offers is hidden from potential buyers. This material will help to get an idea of what pitfalls can be expected in the way of placing goods in Yandex.Market, and how to deal with it. The article features some prices for placing goods on Yandex.Market and discusses options for cooperation (technical support services or a personal manager). The article contains small pieces of code for debugging a YML file.
Part 1. Registering an online store, checking the price list and troubleshooting
To be placed in the Yandex.Market system, you need to prepare a Price List in YML (vs XML) format in advance for broadcasting the goods presented in your online store. The specification of such a YML file can be found on Yandex pages, in the Market section. If the online store is based on a CMS that is not adapted for the needs of placing goods on Yandex.Market (as a rule, this is exactly the case), the script for generating the YML file will need to be written manually. An example of practical and step-by-step development of such a file is an article from my blog's YML file for broadcasting goods on Yandex.Market (script for osCommerce 2.3) . In this article, I will periodically refer to this script when writing code.
After we have a ready-made script for the YML file on our site, you need to fill out a number of fields - the so-called. "Placement options." The link for registering a new store is here: partner.market.yandex.ru/pre/index.xml (not to be confused with Yandex.Webmaster - Goods and prices). Placement options include: price list (link to a YML file from your site; you can download a YML file from your computer, but you will have to update it once every 15 days); delivery information (regions, cost); legal information (legal info must be posted on your site - you have to specify the address of the page), a valid phone number for receiving orders (Yandex employees will call back to this number trying to order any of the goods from you), etc. After that we send Price list for verification.
Possible Errors in the YML File
Even if the script itself is correctly written, a number of errors may occur, for example, with the address of the product image, or with duplicate goods. There was a case when they called me (apparently, being guided by the materials of my blog and using the provided contact phone number) with a request to tell what could be wrong with the images, because This error was indicated in Yandex.Market tech support.
An error with the output of images is most often due to the fact that the names of images uploaded to the site may use invalid characters (for example, a space). In order to convert such names into a URL digestible for Yandex, it is enough to use the corresponding php function rawurlencode. We are looking for a code fragment in which the output of the URL of the catalog image is performed. In my script for OsCommerce 2.3, this is the following segment: We add the rawurlencode url encoding function. Thus, the code for outputting a picture from the catalog will look something like this:
$src_file = $csite."catalog/images/".$tovar['picture'];
$ppy = "".$src_file.""; $src_file = $csite."catalog/images/".rawurlencode(($tovar['picture']);
$ppy = "".$src_file."";What to do with takes? Mistakes with duplicate products are significantly less critical. They appear due to the fact that you use the same name / the same main picture in the representation of 2 (or more) products. So, if you have the same model, but of different colors, it’s enough to assign a color (blue, black), etc. to its name, and also replace the main image of such a product with the corresponding photo.
Part 2. Yandex.Market prices and cooperation options. What gives a personal manager
Payments on Yandex.Market are made by clicks. CPCs - 1.5 rubles (0.05 cu) for books and 3 rubles. (0,1 cu) for all other goods. However, to work with Yandex.Market you need to make a down payment. Here Yandex.Market offers 2 options for cooperation:
- Option 1. Standard. Fee 300 rub. The deposited funds remain on your account and go exclusively to pay for clicks. Service - tech. support (answers questions within a few days).
- Option 2. With the "attachment" of a personal manager. Contribution 9000 rub. The deposited funds, as well as in the 1st option, remain on your account and go exclusively to pay for clicks. Service - a personal manager (answers questions within a few hours by mail, or, as necessary, by phone in real time, which is very convenient). All problems are detected and resolved quickly enough.
Thus, we can say that when serving with a personal manager you lose nothing (the entire amount of the contribution goes only to clicks), however, you get good advantages for starting, and it is at this stage that the main questions and troubles arise. It should be noted that working with a personal manager is possible for a longer period than the first month, however, at the same time, your monthly expense should exceed 21 thousand rubles, which you must specifically “catch up” with (for example, overpriced click rates), my opinion does not make sense.
Being quite scrupulous people (if not meticulous), - both I and the site owner (Customer), we asked for a long time and thoroughly about where these 9 thousand would go, and finally we were convinced of the rationality of working with a personal manager , calculating that this amount is quite justified, even if you just take it offhand for 100 clicks per day (300 rubles per day = 9000 per month). Taking this opportunity, I would like to share in advance my general impression of the Yandex.Market team (which remained very positive), and praise our personal manager, Natalya Malakhova, for her professionalism and attention.
Part 3. I meant a hedgehog, not an elephant. What threatens the wrong category definition on Yandex.Market, and how to get into the right one
So, you passed the check of the Price list, with the photo cards of the goods, everything is fine with you, paid the fee, and your online store turned out to be “on”. You even have an overview of the "Published Offers." You would be ready to relax, if you had not managed to make a couple of key queries on Yandex.Market in the hope of seeing your products. However, for most requests, they are completely absent, while for others they are represented in a scanty amount. In addition, for some reason, all of your vision glasses that the search gives out are in sunglasses (which in itself is wrong). More surprising. When communicating with the manager, it turns out that most of your products fell into categories such as “Sandals”, “Men's Shoes”, “Underpants”, etc. According to the manager’s reasonable assumption, these products are missingin the search for key queries. Such inconsistencies are quite typical. For example, Natalya told the story of how baskets fell into the category of "Pools" - on the grounds that they are round.
Let's see what happens.
According to our personal manager, Yandex.Market automatically sortes goods by categories according to a number of signs. Moreover, the search in Yandex.Market is carried out according to the same criteria, and not solely by the name of the product. The names of our products looked like this: "Buy Emporio Armani 9730 ATG men's glasses." The use of the word “buy” in the name is unacceptable for the Market, and Natalya was surprised how we passed the quality control (CCM) in general. The bottom line is that the names should be urgently redirected. To manually rewrite them on the site would be an epic task (talking about hundreds of positions). It’s much easier to fix them in the YML file itself by replacing stable combinations (here it is “Buy men's glasses ...”, “Buy women's glasses ...", "Buy children's glasses ...", etc.) . In addition, we must be featured when looking for frames, therefore, the word "frames" will need to be added. We are looking for a code fragment that is responsible for displaying the name of the product. In my script, these are the following lines:
$tovar['name'] = htmlspecialchars($tovar['name']);
...
$tovar[name]We replace stable combinations using the php function str_replace: As a result, all names of the form “Buy men's glasses Emporio Armani 9730 ATG” are replaced by the view: “Men's glasses (frame) Emporio Armaеi 9730 ATG”. Subsequently, our products were successfully classified by Yandex.Market in the necessary categories: Optics - Glasses - Frames. When searching for key queries, everything is fine too.
$tovar['name'] = htmlspecialchars($tovar['name']);
$tovar['name'] = str_replace('Купить мужские очки', 'Мужские очки (оправа)'), $tovar['name']);
$tovar['name'] = str_replace('Купить женские очки', 'Женские очки (оправа)', $tovar['name']);
$tovar['name'] = str_replace('Купить детские очки', 'Детские очки (оправа)', $tovar['name']);
$tovar['name'] = str_replace('Купить очки', 'Очки', $tovar['name']);
$tovar['name'] = str_replace('Купить очковые линзы', 'Очковые линзы', $tovar['name']);
...
$tovar[name]Recommendations in the end. In order to get into the right category on Yandex.Market, and also to successfully appear in Yandex.Market search results for key queries, check in advance the names of your products with the already published offers of competitors participating in the search results for the right queries. In our case, these were offers of the form “Eyeglass frame [brand] [model] ...”. It is not necessary to completely copy such names, it is enough to observe the typicality of combinations.
From the author. To all commentators, I express my gratitude and respect for the feedback in advance. To all silent minusers: verbal criticism is far more useful and constructive than a mute understatement of the post. Please leave your corrections so that you can more carefully study the topic.