I Am about to Start Using Datafeedr Again
I Am about to Start Using Datafeedr Again
I first started using Datafeedr back in 2011, I cannot actually remember the reason I stopped using it, but anyway I’m about to start using Datafeedr again!
I’m Not Particularly Technical
First of all, I’m not particularly technical although I do enjoy technical stuff, the problem is having enough time to learn how to use software, plug-ins etc as my main aim is to write content for my websites and I really don’t have huge amounts of time to learn too many extra skills.
BlogPig
Over the years I have tried various data feed products with the help of my excellent Webmaster. I believe the first piece of software that we tried was called Blogpig, I can’t remember actually how it worked but it added products to your website which was extremely useful for a new website. It’s always a problem when you have a brand-new website and sometimes you want to add products quickly so you can then blog about these particular products. Blogpig actually seemed to work okay, it simply just put the content on your website from a CSV file once and that was it, if I remember rightly it didn’t actually do any updates, so the principal was quite straightforward, I think I used broken link checker to check my links were all up to date on a regular basis.
Blogpig is definitely a quick way of populating your website, however, it doesn’t really offer any functionality, but it did the job at the time and I believe the following day we actually had sales, so something worked! Unfortunately, it appears that Blogpig is no longer available, whether there is something else that has replaced it I do not know, I’ll be interested to hear if there is anything similar on the market.
WP Import
The next importer that we tried is something called WP Import, this comes with a 30-day money back guarantee and has about 7000 customers. I’ve used WP import for several years now, however, I don’t find it particularly straightforward to use and I believe that Datafeedr will make the job much easier and much less technical to someone who wants to avoid too much techie stuff. WP import uses a CSV or XML file to import products into WordPress theme, it apparently works with any plug-in for any WordPress theme and you can drag and drop files into your website. It does amaze me how you can make an Excel file into a nice product on a WordPress website very quickly.
It is capable of loading very large files onto your website, I have several files that have 5000+ products on and although this is a huge amount of products it still works on shared hosting, however, it does take a few hours to update and also slows up your website considerably when there is a download going on. This is one of the reasons that I am trying out DataFeedr again as I feel it puts much less strain on your hosting and interface and for someone like me it’s much more user-friendly. However, I don’t want to run a product down because I believe this is partly due to my lack of knowledge on technical stuff and I’m not really willing to put time into learning this type of thing. I believe that the functionality is almost as good as Datafeedr, however, I believe using datafeedr the updates and automation will be so much easier and once it is set up there’s a lot less work to do.
Datafeedr
I have literally just purchased Datafeedr for the second time after several years break a couple of days ago, so at the moment I’m just testing on a dummy website. So far so good, the functionality has improved a lot since I first tried this product back in 2011. It took me about two hours to set up Datafeedr and once I’d found the setup video which is shown in the documentation, I actually had to email support for the link to the step-by-step video. I don’t understand why companies who produce software don’t produce more step-by-step video guides, it would save them huge amounts of effort into replying to emails about functionality and how to too’s! I have to say that I have already emailed support several times so far and their response time has been very good and very helpful.
I find the datafeedr interface fairly straightforward to use and the good thing is that you don’t actually need any technical knowledge, it’s is just a case of learning how the product works, which will come with practice, it is extremely useful having a test site to test Datafeedr on!
Datafeedr now works in conjunction with the Woo Commerce storefront which offers even more functionality, I like the ability to be able to make it easy for the user to find particular products. For example, there is a comparison feature, so for affiliate marketing, you can have several different prices from different stores for the same product, and extremely beneficial feature!
It also offers the ability to sort by manufacturer, product type and last viewed and suggested, all things I believe lead to a very pleasant user experience.
Please feel free to comment below.
Roy Bretton
The Christian Internet Marketer
Joseph Stasaitis
December 15, 2018 @ 7:48 pm
Thanks Roy. Appreciate the info as I was not aware of any of these products. I also am not overly technical as I spend time I have writing content which I enjoy to do. Thanks for making me aware of this. Joe
Roy Bretton
December 16, 2018 @ 7:27 am
Thank you for taking the time to comment Joe, I really do appreciate it.
This is actually why or one of the reasons why I actually wrote this post, there is so much available on the Internet today that can help our businesses grow, this is just one product of many. I hope to write more articles on the subject.
Roy
Norman Richards
December 16, 2018 @ 10:29 am
This is the first time that I have heard about this but it sounds to be very interesting. I agree with you especially if you want persons to purchase your product there should be some training that is made available to help persons to understand how to use that product.
Roy Bretton
December 17, 2018 @ 6:00 am
Thank you for taking the time to comment Norman. I think there are many many products on the Internet that can potentially help us, but we never actually hear about them and I guess datafeedr is one of them! I will keep you posted on how I get on with datafeeder in future blog posts.
Roy
Heidi
December 17, 2018 @ 10:46 am
Hi Roy I am just wondering if they have a free version.
I have just installed Woocommerce on one of my sites as a bit of a practice run at having a shop front on my blogging site and I’m not sure exactly what other plugins I need at this time.
I noticed you said you had 5000 products in a CSV file so when you add products do you add them to your CSV file for later use? I have been adding straight into the website but this sounds like a better idea in case of failure or for whatever reason needing to reinstall all the products I have chosen.
Your thoughts appreciated.
Roy Bretton
December 17, 2018 @ 9:41 pm
Hello Heidi,
Thanks for taking the time to comment, I really do appreciate it.
In answer to your question, I’m afraid that Datafeedr doesn’t have a free version, however you can see the basic starter version here they will also give you a 30 day money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied. I much prefer datafeedr to WP Import, I do think the WP Import is good, but in my experience it is much higher maintenance than datafeedr.
I have over 7000 products on one site that were added to the site via WP Import and it could potentially have more products, however, it is quite heavy on the server, I am using Wealthy Affiliate hosting, so it does take quite a long time to update, sometimes up to around eight hours.
As I mentioned in my blog post, I have used datafeedr before, however, it was quite a few years ago and I know that they have added more functionality now, I have only been using Datafeedr for a few days, so I am testing on a testing site. Woo Commerce is also new to me, last time when I used datafeedr it was not used in conjunction with Woo Commerce, however, this does improve the functionality greatly.
If you’re not technologically minded I would definitely go for datafedr, it also has more functionality and is easier to use than WP Import there is a monthly cost involved though. Whereas WP Import is a one-off payment but there is more technical stuff to learn and a much bigger learning curve in my experience.
Please feel free to ask any more questions that you may have Heidi.
Roy