This page shows the options available for retailers who would like to promote their products on the UK's first local shopping search-engine, AskTheLocal. If you would like to know more about why this is a good idea, please download our retail white paper.

1. List your products on AskTheLocal  (free)


2. Add "Check availability" and "Reserve product" links  (pay per click)


3. Add Discount Coupons  (pay for performance)


4. Contact us

1. List your products on AskTheLocal (free)    [top]

If you would like AskTheLocal to find the products in your real-world stores (this service is free) please follow these steps:

(A) Register with us

Please email us the following information:

1. corporation name, and address
2. a contact name, and number/email
3. your preferred method of sending your product data to us.
We offer Email for small stores only. Web Retrieval is our preferred method for all customers. This is where you post your product data onto a page of your website and we automatically retrieve that data from your site. If you use some form of authentication, please send us a username and password so that our robot can still pick up the data.
4. For those using the Web Retrieval method above, please send us the URL locations of your data files (described in the next section). E.g.
   http://www.yourstore.com/data/products_YourStore.txt
   http://www.yourstore.com/data/stores_YourStore.txt
   http://www.yourstore.com/data/products_in_stores_YourStore.txt.

(B) Data Files

We require three data files: the products file, the stores file and the products_in_stores file. You can update the files as often as you want, although we only aim to retrieve them weekly presently.

We accept the following file types. Either (i) A ".csv" file, or (ii) an "XML" file or (iii) a "tab-delimited" plain text file. We recommend users of Microsoft software to output in either a ".csv" file or an XML file, and we recommend users of Linux or Unix to output in tab-delimited plain text format or XML.

(i) .csv file format:

If you use popular office software such as Microsoft Office or the free OpenOffice.org, then you can easily export in ".csv" format from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or an OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet. The first row of the spreadsheet must be the field names, and you should start the spreadsheet in the upper left corner with no blank rows or columns before starting. (Technical file format details if necessary: Use commas ',' as the "delimiters", and double quotes "" as string identifiers. Use two quotation marks "" to escape any quotation marks inside strings.) Download the .csv example files below and use those as an example from which to work.

(ii) .xml file format. This file format may require programming using an XML library. Please see the example files below. You can use either a UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1 character encoding.

(iii) .txt file format. This is a tab-delimited, plain text file format, with each field separated by a tab \t character, and each line separated by a newline \n character. The first line should have the field names in the order of your data. Any tabs or new-lines inside the content should be escaped with a backslash, \. e.g. \\n for an escaped newline.

1. Products file

Please name your products file: products_[YourStoreName].[file type]

Here is an example products file in our three formats:
products_marksandspencer.csv
products_marksandspencer.xml
products_marksandspencer.txt


The products file has the following fields:

product_id - your internal ID for each product - could just be consecutive numbers. The important thing is that they are unique for each product.

name - the name of your product

price - the number you provide must be in UK pounds sterling. However, if you have different prices in different stores, then do not include this field in the products file, but look at format of the 'products_in_stores' file below and include your prices there.

description (optional) - a brief description of your product.

category (optional) - you can include your own category (and any subcategories) in which this product belongs. This will not be visible, but we may use it to improve your products' search result relevance.

product_url (optional) - a link to a web page describing this product in more detail. This could be your online shopping webpage describing this particular item, or a link to a manufacturers product page. Please make this a full url, e.g. http://www.marksandspencer.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=3274&Product_Id=1924532

image_url (optional) - a link to an image of this product on your website, or a manufacturers website. Please link to a large or medium sized image! Please do not link to a small thumbnail image. This image url can either be a full url, or a url relative to the root of your website. e.g. either: http://www.marksandspencer.com/Images/Catalog/Product/H/T592661JH.jpg - or - /Images/Catalog/Product/H/T592661JH.jpg

2. Stores file - an additional file we need as a local shopping search that lets us locate your physical stores. Note: If you only have one store, then your file will have a single line of data following the line of field names.

Please name your stores file: stores_[YourStoreName].[file type]

Here is an example stores file in our three formats:
stores_marksandspencer.csv
stores_marksandspencer.xml
stores_marksandspencer.txt


The stores file has the following fields:

store_id - your internal ID for each store - could just be consecutive numbers, or even the store names themselves. The important thing is that they are unique for each store, and remain the same from one product submission to the next. If you are a single store rather than a chain, then you could just put '1' here.

name - the name of your store, it is also recommended you put the town after the company name if you are a chain. e.g. Marks & Spencer, Oxford.

address - your full store address, which must include a postcode. e.g. 52 Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh EH10 4DE

phone - please include your area code e.g. 0131 365 2785

hours (optional) - recommended format is e.g. Sun 10-9, Mon-Sat 10-11

latitude (optional) - We usually take each store address and turn it into geographic latitude and longitude coordinates for the benefit of our search software. However, this process can be error prone, and you are welcome to remove this error by using a GPS unit to find the latitude and longitude of each store. In this case please use a decimal degree format with at least 5 decimal places - the 5th decimal place indicates approx 1 meter accuracy. e.g. 50.73268

longitude (optional) - please see the latitude format above.

3. Products_in_Stores file - this file indicates which products go in which stores.

Please name your products_in_stores file: products_in_stores_[YourStoreName].[file type]

Here is an example products_in_stores file in our three formats for spreadsheet users:
products_in_stores_marksandspencer.csv
products_in_stores_marksandspencer.xml
products_in_stores_marksandspencer.txt


Here is an example products_in_stores file in our three formats for database users:
products_in_stores_marksandspencer.csv
products_in_stores_marksandspencer.xml
products_in_stores_marksandspencer.txt


The products_in_stores file uses the fields below:

product_id - this column lists row by row all the ids of all the products that are currently in stock in any of your stores. These product_id's must be the exact same product_id's used in the products file. Please note that even if a product is included in the products file, it will not make it into AskTheLocal until it's product_id is included in this products_in_stores column.

store_id - this field describes which stores stock this product. There are two different formats for this field which you can choose depending on which is most convenient for you. Typically people preparing the data with a spreadsheet will like the first format below, and people preparing the data from a database will prefer the second format.

(i) This field is in the format of a comma-delimited list of store_id's and must use exactly the same store_id's referred to in the stores file. If you only have a single store, and called the store_id '1' in the stores file, then you can just put a single '1' in this field next to each of your products that are in stock. If you have multiple stores then this field might look like e.g. 1,3,5,6 - there is no need to include spaces after commas. If you have different prices at different store locations then include these prices in this file by putting a colon between the store_id and the price. e.g. 1:3.95,3:3.50,5:3.95,6:4.10.

(ii) The alternative format we accept which may be easier for database administrators, is to list only one store_id for each product_id. If you have a products_in_stores table with a "many-to-many" relationship, then in SQL: "select product_id, store_id from products_in_stores" will provide the correct output. If there is a way of directly exporting this query to a tab-delimited file, for example in MySQL: "select product_id, store_id from products_in_stores into outfile 'products_in_stores_yourstore.txt';" then this file will immediately be in one of the correct formats to use. If the price of your product varies between different stores then you may include a third field: "price" in this format.




Note: the method of submitting these files to AskTheLocal is described in the section called (A) Register with us, above.

If you need any help with these files, please contact us.

2. Add "Check availability" and "Reserve product" links (pay per click)    [top]

Retailers can choose to add a "Check availability" link next to products from their shops. Customers who click this link will learn if a product is in stock and available from the local shop (and optionally how many of that product are available). It gives customers confidence that they can go directly to the shop to buy the product, or that it is available to reserve.

Example of a "Check availability" link in a search result

Retailers then have the additional option to display a "Reserve product" link once the customer has confirmed the product is in stock. This option saves the customer the time and effort of making a phone-call to reserve a product, as well as saving the retailer time answering that same call.

AskTheLocal offers these related services on a pay-per-click basis. Retailers signing up for the "Check availability" service will need to have an online stock check that can be made available to AskTheLocal. Retailers signing up for the additional "Reserve product" link will need an online stock reservation system that can be made available to AskTheLocal.

Please contact us to discuss this further.

3. Add Discount Coupons (pay for performance)    [top]

Retailers can opt to include discount coupons next to products from their shops. Users will click on the coupons to gain an advertised discount on particular products. AskTheLocal will display a code that can be taken into the shop and given to a salesperson when making each purchase.

Example of a discount coupon in a search result

Retailers who put appropriate systems in place to count the number of sales generated by the coupons can arrange to pay for this service based on performance instead of paying per click.

Please contact us to discuss this further.

4. Contact us    [top]

Contact Paula Abrahamson CEO, AskTheLocal Tel: +44(0)207-735-4756