price comparison with joomla
Finding identical products
The real problem creating a price comparison website using joomla or any other script is finding identical products. For some product ranges price comparison is possible using unique codes like the EAN or ISBN code. Although even these codes are not as unique as you might hope they a quit good base for price comparison. In some fields like holidays or fashion ean codes are less common or not supplied in the datafeed. Finding identical (or even similar) product required some creative thinking, for accommodations the 'accommodation name' might be good option to use, for mobile phone the brand and type are indicators for more or less identical phones.
Siblings
Whatever your choice of 'identical products' is, the component supports finding siblings with the exact same 'key'
How to use
In the feed configuration assign the desired key to a 'Select' field. For example assign the ean field to select7. Assign the same key to the same select field for all your feeds ( at least feeds used in the same group/Select0) . The example below show the 'ean' field from the feed assigned to the database field 'Select 8'
In the menu configuration select assigned field for siblings (in the advanced tab) and the number of siblings to show.
In the example below the items are related using the 'Select 8' database field. For each item a maximum of 5 siblings are shown. For each feed ( = 'Merchant') only one item is show. And the siblings are order, thus this configuration will show the five cheapest merchants.
Creating a layout
In the layout use
$this->assignRef('siblings', $this->get( 'Siblings'));
to get a list of siblings of the displayed items. Loop throught the array to display each sibling.
A layout is not included in the distribution. An example layout and help setting it up can be obtained as part of a support license
Example Samsung GSM Telefoons