NEED HELP finding suppliers with Web APIs

[lordplagus02]

Hi everybody

I am busy setting up an online store, coded in C# ASP.Net MVC 4, and I have run into an issue. I need to populate my SQL Server database with a list of products, and I want to do this properly, including product name, description, supplier stock levels, etc. I have no idea how to go about this, as I do not know which suppliers offer a Web API of sorts that will allow me to interface my application with their systems and get live data and a full list of products.

Can anybody advise me on how I should proceed regarding populating my site with up-to-date products?

 

[sp4ceman]

get a few pricelists in excel or whatever and scrape them.

 

[scudsucker]

Sounds like homework - and sounds like you are over-reaching.

Not many suppliers will just hand out the details via an API like that to some random on the internet. I'd suggest populating your DB from Excel like sp4ceman suggests, for authenticity you could use a real shop's lists, eg this computer parts price list

 

[koeksGHT]

get a few pricelists in excel or whatever and scrape them.

scrape is option, Rectron sends me csv files to import into quoting system.

Pinnacle also has a feed which is only there cause we nagged them

http://www.pinnaclezone.co.za/xmlfeed/xml.cfm?dealer=1

 

[semaphore]

scrape is option, Rectron sends me csv files to import into quoting system.

Pinnacle also has a feed which is only there cause we nagged them

http://www.pinnaclezone.co.za/xmlfeed/xml.cfm?dealer=1

cold fusion ****.

 

[reecevdm]

scrape is option, Rectron sends me csv files to import into quoting system.

Pinnacle also has a feed which is only there cause we nagged them

http://www.pinnaclezone.co.za/xmlfeed/xml.cfm?dealer=1

@koeksGHT: Which Rectron branch do you deal with? I'm with the Durban branch and I've been battling with them for the past 6 months to get a csv file but they have no idea what I'm talking about.
Please advise

 

[koeksGHT]

@koeksGHT: Which Rectron branch do you deal with? I'm with the Durban branch and I've been battling with them for the past 6 months to get a csv file but they have no idea what I'm talking about.
Please advise

Was PE. They just export from their system

 

[reecevdm]

Was PE. They just export from their system

@koeksGHT: Thanks for the quick response. Do you by any chance have a file that they've sent you?
I've been requesting it from the Dbn branch for almost a year now. I know that the jbh branch can do that too, but the guys in dbn have no clue how to get this. I don't mind if it's a file that's a year old, I just need to send them that file format.
Thanks.

Regards,
Maurice

 

[rward]

You can also set yourself up some schemas at http://mockaroo.com/
You can create a schema, download the dataset, re-upload it and then create different schemas based on the dataset you uploaded.

eg. Create a customer table, download the data, upload the customer data to mockaroo as your customer dataset and then create an orders table with the customer.id coming form your customers dataset.


Mockaroo is pretty powerful and free.

Also the 'blank %' adds a nice catch to the system to ensure you handle no data correctly.