• What makes a good retail partner?

  When choosing to link to another retailer for Buy Online (or offline) participation in your Where to Buy tool, annual sales isn't the only measure you should consider.  Of course they should have a good reputation, rating, customer service experience, but what makes a good Where to Buy partner?  A good retail partner should have the following features that are specific to a Where to Buy tool: Good Web data or API: Leveraging automation requires that a retailer [properly represent the prodFew readers

• Viewing pricing history for monitored products

  Price history for a product can be viewed from the monitored product perspective which shows all retailer prices, or for a single retailer. Viewing Price History for a Monitored Product Click Products > All Records Identify the desired product by searching by SKU or keyword. Click the name of the desired product Click the Retailers tab.  A summary of the last 30 days of pricing history will be displayed in chart format. [![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/fFew readers

• Manual Price Updates

  Introduction Automatic product data gathering can occasionally be thwarted by advanced firewall solutions, scraper blocking technology using AI and other methods.This evolving technology can sometimes require that price and stock status updates be performed manually.MetaLocator monitors crawling failures to identify troublesome URLs that are otherwise valid but failing to yield product data. In these cases MetaLocator will usually reach out to the retailer, sometimes in cooperation with thFew readers

• Manually adjusting product price or stock status

  To update a product price, first click Products in the main navigation, and identify the product. Click the product name to open the editor. [](https://downloads.intercomcdn.com/i/o/163310814/303a9a8d3d1a0bdf2b3dc155/image.png?expires=1794513600&signature=be2f6a004111b0604398e87e775dd9d37267fd4a1618e5ea2412b90b26b32431&req=dSYkFch%2BlYBbFb4f3HP0gOsAQy7pXJBzOygKhtN5dASomlfFew readers

• Correcting Price Inconsistencies

  When a product price is displayed on the Where to Buy tool but the resulting retailer website displays a different price it can be a jarring experience for the end user.  The reasons why a product price may differ include: The data in MetaLocator has not been updated.  MetaLocator tracks product updates based on historical observations of how often prices change, among other factors.  Without a direct connection to the retailer, some price differences may occur. The retailer is displayingFew readers

• Product Offboarding

  As products are released to the public on retailer Websites, the Onboarding Process finds them, and adds them to MetaLocator for display in Where to Buy and MAP monitoring products.  The opposite occurs when products are discontinued from retailer Websites.  When we can no longer obtain updates for a product from a retailer Website, we un-publish it from MetaLocator.  This is called offboarding.  This article discussions how this process works, and how to manage offboarding options. OffboardiFew readers

• Hiding select retailers from the Where to Buy Interface

  To hide a retailer from an Interface, login to MetaLocator and click Interfaces, then the name of the interface to open the Interface Editor. Scroll down to the Buy Online settings and click to expand the settings group. Choose one or more retailers which should be hidden from the Interface as shown below from the Hide Retailers setting. [](https://downloads.interFew readers

• Seamless SKU transitions

  Some manufacturers release different product versions under new SKUs.  As these new products are released, it is important for MetaLocator to properly identify and update the product under its new identity. The new SKU should also appear under Interface and button integrations that reference the old SKU. This allows data managers to introduce new SKUs without involving the Web team to change the SKU. This procedure assumes the following product lifecycle: SKU A is active and integrated onFew readers

• Stock status definitions

  In Stock The product is known to be carried by the retailer and is currently available for purchase from the vendor online or in-store. Out of Stock The product is known to be carried by the retailer, but is not currently available for purchase online from the vendor.  The retailer product detail page does not have content indicating that this is a permanent situation. Call for Availability/Click to View Price The product status is not known, or not displayed.  This is the defaultFew readers

• Importing products for retail product monitoring

  Importing manufacturer products into MetaLocator is one of the first and ongoing steps in preparing a Where to Buy solution.  The quality, structure and completeness of the manufacturer product data underpins many downstream tasks, and is therefore critical.  This article summarizes the important steps.  Your specific requirements may vary, and should be discussed with your account manager as part of the on-boarding process. [Download the template](https://admin.metalocator.com/components/com_lFew readers

• Importing retailers into MetaLocator for product monitoring

  Importing and adding retailers into MetaLocator is one of the first steps in monitoring price data for your Where to Buy solutions.  Understanding which retailers pose the best strategic decision is covered here.  This article covers the mechanics of requesting a retailer for addition to your account. Retail partners can be added one by one, or in bulk.  Regardless of the import method, they will be on-boarded by the MetaLocator DFew readers

• Importing Retailer Offers

  During the setup process, it is necessary to import offers from a retailer.  This process imports the results from the Retailer Spider or API into MetaLocator. Therefore, it's important that the spider authoring or API integration has been completed before importing offers. To begin the process, navigate to Retailers on the main navigation, and click the ellipsis menu next to any retailer to select Update or ReCrawl. [![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/6/4/7/a/647a1580f66eFew readers

• Evaluating a retailer website for price monitoring

  Introduction In MetaLocator's Where to Buy solution, price monitoring is a key component of the software. To monitor prices, MetaLocator crawls the target retailer Website, in hopes of indentifying important product attributes which can be used for matching. Matching relies on overlapping data within what is found on the target Website and what is provided in the [product import](https://support.metalocator.com/en/articFew readers

• Where to Buy Button Integration

  Building a product finder with MetaLocator often involves the use of our "Where to Buy" buttons.  When clicked, these buttons display a MetaLocator interface in a modal dialog window, which commonly displays product pricing and availability information for online and offline channels.  This setup guide serves as a quick introduction to creating a button, adding it to your website, and understanding the basic operation of the button and related modalFew readers

• Updating logos for retailers

  Retailer logos are often used to display links to your retail partners.  According to the documentation, the logo image is a "URL of the retailer logo.  Should be at least 500px wide and a 24-bit transparent background PNG." To upload a new logo, click Retailers, then the name of the retailer.  Then select "Upload File" as shown below and choose an appropriate file from your computer:Few readers

• Retailer API

  MetaLocator's Where to Buy solution provides an API which returns the links, prices, product and retailer details to support a complete custom user interface or mobile app integration. The Retailer API is intented to support the creation of a UI similar to the below, which includes product details, a list of available retailers from which to purchase, links, images, stock status and prices. [![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/4/9/5/a/495a0e4724707c00/a4676950-2f51-42a9-bf99Few readers

• Retailer Commitment

  MetaLocator drives highly qualified traffic directly to retailer Web sites.  To do this, we require structured data from the retailer, and that may involve crawling a product directory, or obtaining data from a retailer provided API.  MetaLocator is committed to performing data acquisition in alignment with the content owner's rights, preferences and rules.  To that end, the following practices are observed: Opt-out: Retailers may opt-out of participation at will.  Requests to be removed areFew readers

• Mapping Affiliate Tags to Campaigns

  Historically Amazon has not allowed affiliates to include custom tracking tags in the link.  This means that Amazon transactions are effectively anonymous.  Amazon does allow for the use of Tracking IDs which can be dynamically mapped by MetaLocator based on the incoming UTM parameters.  Transactions are then attributed to the associated campaigns when they are imported from Amazon into MetaLocator's analytics platform, closing the loop for campaign attribution for Amazon. The below diagram illFew readers

• Product Matching

  When MetaLocator initializes a retailer for a given brand, all products from that brand available from the retailer are considered.  Whether its a crawler, API integration or data feed, MetaLocator requests all products for the brand available from that retailer. The request process typically leverages an existing search system on the retailer's Web site or API. This request commonly returns all products from a brand, including: Current, valid products Refurbished products Used or partsFew readers

• Updating products with retailer-specific group links

  Sometimes the results for a group search term on a particular retailer Web site do not present the best user experience. This can decrease conversions and create an undesirable experience for the end user. One solution to this problem is to manually specify an alternative link to display To manually craft the link for a given product group it can be edited as follows: Click Products Identify the any product in the group in question by searching by SKU or keyword. Click the product nFew readers

• Importing Conversions for Where to Buy

  MetaLocator collects confirmed conversions from retailer affiliate programs to support analytics for Where to Buy. This conversion data can be imported into MetaLocator in the following ways Automatically via our existing integrations with affiliate programs like Awin, CJ.com, LinkShare and Amazon Manually uploaded in the MetaLocator dashboard Pulled from a MetaLocator-provided SFTP endpoint. Tracked in real tiFew readers

• Integrating a product finder with an eCommerce platform

  Directing a potential customer to the right retail location for a given product can be challenging if a retailer company has products for sale in multiple locations.  When the inventory varies by location, the picture can become even more confusing. In this article we are exploring the product finder features of MetaLocator.  This article focuses on integrating the product pages of an eCommerce with a product finder that shows whFew readers

• How do I trigger product discovery?

  MetaLocator constantly monitors your retail partners for the appearance of previously un-stocked products.  We do that in a manner that is sensitive to the retail partner website or API.  If you require a particular product or products to be discovered quickly, follow the steps below. ​ To force the system to re-check all retailers to see if they stock a monitored product, click Products in the main navigation.  Select the product or products of interest, and choose Trigger Onboarding from thFew readers

• TOU Exception Request

  Some retailer Websites specifically prohibit scraping.  It is important to honor these requirements and to operate solutions with the boundaries of the seller policy.  Product manufacturers may leverage their good relationship with the retailer and obtain a policy exception.  The exception, called a Terms of Use (TOU) Exception should be obtained in writing and configured in the MetaLocator dashboard under the Retailer section as shown below: [![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/websiFew readers

• Building a product finder with MetaLocator

  Product finders are a type of locator that includes the tracking of a list of products for each location.  Users can search by a combination of location and product to produce results that show only locations near their search term that stock the requested product.  MetaLocator is especially well-suited to support this type of locator. There are a few variations of a product finder.  In this example, we'll be exploring a use case where the following conditions are met: We have a variable invFew readers