This article explains the three primary methods for bringing your products into the Bambuser Live and Shoppable Video players. Understanding these workflows is essential for providing a seamless shopping experience for your viewers.

1. Product Data Scraping

Product scraping is the most basic way to add items to a show. When you paste a product URL into the Bambuser Dashboard, our scraper scans your website to extract essential information.

• How it works: The scraper looks for structured data on your Product Detail Page (PDP) using a priority order: Schema.org markup (JSON-LD or Microdata), OpenGraph tags, and finally generic HTML tags.
• What is collected: Title, thumbnail image, brand name, price, currency, and SKU (product reference).
• Refresh Rate: Data never gets automatically refreshed. To update product information, you must manually refresh it in the Bam Hub by clicking the checkbox next to the product and clicking "Refresh".
• Limitations: If your site lacks structured data, you may see errors, requiring your developers to adjust the structure or that you manually edit the product details in the Bam Hub.
• Learn More: Detailed documentation on scraping can be found here: https://bambuser.com/docs/live/data-scraping/.

2. Product Feed (Catalog Sync)

The Product Feed feature allows for automated synchronization between your store's entire catalog and the Bam Hub, eliminating the need to add URLs manually.

• How it works: You connect your catalog via a Public Feed URL (XML, CSV) or SFTP upload.
• Refresh Rate: The sync occurs at a minimum interval of 6 hours.
• Limitations: It currently supports only one product feed per Bam Hub, so it is not ideal for multi-market setups with different catalogs in a single dashboard. Learn more about Product Feed setup.

3. Provide Product Data (Product Hydration Integration)

Product Hydration is the most advanced method, used to "hydrate" products with real-time data from your e-commerce backend. Crucially, if you implement Product Hydration, it will always take precedence over data provided by Scraping or the Product Feed.

• How it works: Data is fetched every time a user initiates a player, and every time the updateProduct function is called.
• Refresh Rate: Data is fetched every time a user initiates a player and every time updateProduct is called via your integration code.
• The Process: When a viewer opens the player, it triggers the player.EVENT.PROVIDE_PRODUCT_DATA event. Your custom integration code intercepts this, fetches the latest data from your API, and updates the player using player.updateProduct().
• Why use it: This is required for a full In-Player Cart experience, allowing for real-time stock status (e.g., graying out sold-out sizes) and multiple variations like color and size.
• Priority: Because this method overrides existing data, your code must provide all required details (name, SKU, etc.) during the hydration process.

FAQ: Common Questions

Which method should I use?
Use Scraping or Product Feed to get products into the dashboard initially. If you want a seamless in-player checkout with real-time inventory levels, you must also implement n.

Why does Hydration take precedence?
The updateProduct method is designed to provide the "source of truth" from your inventory at the exact moment a user is watching. This ensures that even if a Product Feed is hours behind, the user sees accurate prices and availability.

Can I display more than two variations (Color, Size, Material)?
Bambuser currently supports a maximum of two divisions (e.g., Color and Size). If you have a third variation, it must be coupled with one of the others in your hydration code. See our troubleshooting guide for more details.

How do I see discounted prices?
This depends on your chosen method:

• Scraping: Ensure your website's JSON-LD structure includes both SalePrice and ListPrice within the priceSpecification
• Product Feed: Include both current and original price fields in your XML, CSV feed file
• Product Hydration: Within your updateProduct code, use .current() for the discounted price and .original() for the strikethrough price inside the .price() method

How often is data/stock updated?
In Scraping, data never gets automatically refreshed; you must manually click "Refresh" next to the product in the Bam Hub.
For Product Feed, data is updated at a minimum interval of 6 hours.
Product Hydration is the most real-time option as data is fetched every time a player is initiated or updateProduct is called.