I have a CJ webservice account that allow me to retrieve data from the merchant. But I have a little discussion with a friend of mine few days ago. I used to retrieve the product data and save them into my own database while he just make the script, list the categories as the trigger and let his visitors directly see the merchant product data via the webservice. I would like to know which would be the best method between the two and the reasons. Can anybody help? Thanks in advance..
Good question. I like to store locally, and here's why... #1 Local look up is a ton faster #2 CJ API can be slightly flakey, and I hate it when there is a 'nulll exception' error, etc for whatever reason. I've run into this a few times. Hit refresh and the product displays. I think it depends on the frequency of change and how well the API will hold up during hits. For example, using eBay's API, I don't run into any problems, and you pretty much want to do real time look ups since the auctions change. CJ merchants products don't change that often, so you could cron a API lookups to happen nightly to populate your database to get fresh prices, etc. I've been working with datafeeds lately, and I've been really liking this direction. depotgang mentioned PopShops.. and they're great too, but you need to pay monthly, depending on the service/features you're looking for. hope this helps hanji