Understanding Bidding on Shopzilla

When using bidding mechanisms, its always important to keep in mind how various bidding methods work together and Shopzilla is no exception.

Category and Product Level Bids

Like many engines, Shopzilla offers the ability to bid on both a group of products at once (category level bids) or on specific products (product level bidding). The first phase of the merchant bid structure is the category level bid. This will cover the entire range of products within a category, and serve as a sort of bid floor. Products will start at this bid level.

The next level is product level bids, which will effectively trump category level bids. Shopzilla will see the product level bid as the overriding value, and default to the provided product level bid. If none is present, then the category level bid will go into effect.

Product Feed vs. Administrative UI

Another layer of bidding occurs in the functioning of the product feed and the Shopzilla bidding interface located in the merchant admin panel. For practical use, I find bidding in the product feed is the most user friendly. This allows the use of a feed management tool or even Excel to quick manipulate bids across a broad range of products. However, bids in the product feed are not effective immediately and may take up to 48 hours to update.

For immediate updates, the Shopzilla online interface can be used, allowing immediate updates which are functioning within minutes. The key to this tool, is understanding product level bids made through Shopzilla UI will override any bids in the product feed.

So in conclusion, product bids override category bids, and online bids override product feed bids. Hope this helps!

January 24th, 2009