Product Feed Requirements

To enable accurate profit calculation based on individual product costs or margins, you need to provide a product data feed. The Profit Tracking system uses this feed to look up the cost or margin for each item in a transaction.

The feed can be in CSV or XML format and should be compatible with the Google Merchant Center feed specification.

Feed Structure

Your feed must contain a unique identifier for each product and a column that holds the cost or margin value.

Key Fields:

• item_id (or SKU): A unique identifier for the product. This ID must match the item_id sent in the purchase event from your website.
• Cost/Margin Column: A dedicated column for the product's cost or margin. The name of this column must be configured in your Profit Project settings under the "Data Field" option.

Example: CSV Feed

Here is an example of a minimal CSV feed. In this case, the cost data is in a column named cost_of_goods_sold_eur.

item_id,product_name,cost_of_goods_sold_eur
SKU123,"Example Product 1","79.99"
SKU456,"Example Product 2","149.50"
SKU789,"Example Product 3","35.00"

When you set up your Profit Project, you would specify cost_of_goods_sold_eur as the "Data Field".

Example: XML Feed

Here is the same data in an XML format that is also compatible with Google Merchant Center.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0" version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Product Feed</title>
    <link>https://www.example.com</link>
    <description>Product cost data feed.</description>
    <item>
      <g:id>SKU123</g:id>
      <g:title>Example Product 1</g:title>
      <g:cost_of_goods_sold_eur>79.99</g:cost_of_goods_sold_eur>
    </item>
    <item>
      <g:id>SKU456</g:id>
      <g:title>Example Product 2</g:title>
      <g:cost_of_goods_sold_eur>149.50</g:cost_of_goods_sold_eur>
    </item>
    <item>
      <g:id>SKU789</g:id>
      <g:title>Example Product 3</g:title>
      <g:cost_of_goods_sold_eur>35.00</g:cost_of_goods_sold_eur>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Feed Refresh

It is important to note that our service periodically refreshes the product feed to ensure that the cost and margin data are up-to-date. For this reason, the URL provided in your Profit Project configuration should point to a file that is always available and regularly updated with the latest product information.

Data Types: cost vs. margin

In your Profit Project settings, you can specify whether the value from the feed represents cost or margin.

• cost: If you select cost, the value from the feed will be subtracted from the item's price to calculate the profit.
• margin: If you select margin, the value from the feed will be treated as the final profit for that item.

Configuration of Additional Costs

Beyond the product-specific data from the feed, you can configure various additional costs within your Profit Project. These costs are applied to each transaction and are essential for a complete profitability analysis.

Based on the controller logic, you can configure the following:

• Cost per Order: A static value or a percentage of the total order value, applied once per order.
  • Example: Shipping cost, payment processing fee.
• Cost per Order Line: A static value or a percentage of the line item's value, applied to each unique product in the cart.
  • Example: Warehouse handling fee, packaging cost per item.

By combining a detailed product feed with these configurable costs, you can achieve a highly accurate and granular view of your store's profitability.