Automatch API reference guide

SOAP or REST API interface?

Starting from version 2.51 – Price2Spy offers both SOAP and REST interfaces.
If you’re using SOAP – please keep in mind that some SOAP clients need to know in which technology was the SOAP server built. In our case, that is Apache CXF JAX-WS

This document covers topics that are common Price2Spy topics, no matter if you use SOAP or REST API interface. However, the documentation on details of implementation and examples are split

• SOAP – the documentation and examples are extracted in the following document: https://www.price2spy.com/en/api/documentation/soap-api.html
• REST – the documentation is provided in standard documentation/testing (Swagger) format: https://api.price2spy.com/rest/swagger-ui.html

Introduction – how AutoMatch works

Price2Spy API represents an interface between 3rd party software (referred as ‘external application’) and Price2Spy. It enables accessing and managing Price2Spy data programmatically, without any need for human interaction. This document covers the newly added features which concern AutoMatch features in Price2Spy.

Basically, AutoMatch is a process where Price2Spy, based on products it already has in its database, tries to find matching products on competitor sites, where such matches haven’t been discovered yet. For those Price2Spy users who are heavily using Price Matrix report – this would mean ‘finding matches which would fill in empty cells in Price Matrix’.

The main objective of AutoMatch process is not only eliminating manual labor (finding matching products on competitor sites) but also getting alerted when competitors introduce new products which they did not carry before.

AutoMatch for one particular product, on one particular site can result in

• No matches found
• One match found
• Multiple potential matches found

URL(s) found as a result of AutoMatch process are not treated the same way as regular URLs monitored by Price2Spy. Actually, Automatched URL needs to be approved before becoming a ‘regular URL’ (and thus being monitored). In that sense, the following concepts are introduced

• Matching accuracy – indicating the ‘closeness’ of the product found by AutoMatch to the product searched
• Matching threshold – indicates how good should the matching accuracy be, in order to auto-approve the AutoMatched URL.
  • AutoMatched URLs with matching rate lower than matching threshold will be subject to approval
  • AutoMatched URLs with matching rate higher than matching threshold will be automatically approved (for example: if matching rate is over 90%, approve it automatically)

Data structure

Typical Price2Spy AutoMatch API usage scenarios

In this chapter, we will try to cover typical scenarios on how your application (referenced as ‘external application’) can interface Price2Spy AutoMatched URLs.

A) Automated approval, no need for correction from External application

This is an ideal scenario and is applicable in industries with highly standardized part numbers, where each product is certain to have its own unique identifier, which is invariable across different sites (the identifier can be EAN, MPN, etc, etc)

Since unique part numbers are assuring that AutoMatches is correct, there is no need for checking them in the External Application.

Since all AutoMatched URLs are automatically approved (promoted to regular Price2Spy URLs) there is practically no need to adapt External Application for the Automatch process.

B) Automated approval, with corrections from External application

This scenario is often encountered with industries dealing with semi-standardized product identifier. Model numbers are standardized, but their appearance in product names may vary from one site to another.

Price2Spy will be able to identify matching products with pretty high accuracy, but it’s still adviseable to establish mechanism on your side which will perform match correctness check.

This mechanism can either be

• Automated – usually based on the product price (big variation in product price indicates potentially wrong match)
• Manual – spot checks performed by human operators

In both above cases, External application should use demoteAutomatchedUrl operation to inform Price2Spy of the wrong match

C) Manual approval from External application

In this case, Automatch process deals with products (or competitor sites) which are too variable – that each potential matched product needs to be checked before approving it. This is typically the cases in industries where no standard product names / model numbers are established.

The result of of manual match check is either

• Approval of automatched URL – performed by promoteAutomatchedUrl
• Disapproval of automatched URL – performed by rejectAutomatchedUrl