Feed Bridge — Epicentr feed from YML and variants for Google Merchant

Feed Bridge is a CatCode service that takes your shop’s feed by URL and serves a converted one at a permanent URL. Nothing to install: it is made for shops on Horoshop, Prom and other platforms where you cannot add your own module but do have a feed.

Two modes: YML → Epicentr XML (no shop level, with category and characteristic codes) and Google Merchant / Meta feed with variants — we add g:item_group_id, g:size and g:color so sizes and colors of one product are glued into one listing instead of duplicates.

You can check it for free. Without a licence you create one test bridge: a report on the whole feed and a test file with the first 20 products. A permanent URL, scheduled updates and up to 2 bridges come with a licence or the 7-day trial.

What you get

• A permanent URL of the finished feed — paste it into the marketplace account or Merchant Center once, then the file is updated on schedule.
• A report on every update: how many products passed, which were rejected and why (no photo, unmatched category, unknown characteristic value, repeated id) and what was written with remarks — for example, a barcode with a wrong check digit.
• Protection against a broken feed: if your feed is cut off, returns 404, gives an empty result or the number of products drops below 30% of the previous update — the previous version stays in place and the report shows the error.
• No extra work: if your server sends ETag or Last-Modified and the feed has not changed, the finished file is not rebuilt.

How it works — step by step

1. Log in to catcode.com.ua and open My Account → Feed Bridge.
2. Create a bridge: the mode and the URL of your feed; for Google optionally a second feed of the same shop with variants (YML or the Facebook feed), for Epicentr optionally the API token.
3. The first conversion starts within a minute. Check the report and the test file.
4. For Epicentr, match categories and, if needed, characteristics and values on the «Matching» tab.
5. Turn on the trial or a licence — the bridge gets a permanent URL that you paste into the Epicentr account or Merchant Center.
6. From then on the feed updates itself every 6, 12 or 24 hours; «Refresh now» works at most once every 2 minutes.

«YML → Epicentr» mode

• The finished file follows Epicentr’s XML import instruction: yml_catalog → offers without the shop level, category with a code, attribute_set, param with paramcode and valuecode.
• Photos separated by «, », the Ukrainian name up to 150 characters, the description in CDATA with allowed tags only (p, br, b, ul, li, table, tr, td): script, style and other tags are removed.
• Availability — in_stock, under_the_order or out_of_stock; what to do with an empty available is set in the bridge settings.
• Prices in another currency are converted with the rate from the feed itself; no rate — the product goes to the report with the reason.
• With an Epicentr API token we download the directory (categories, characteristic sets, value codes) and match characteristics by name automatically.
• Without a token you type category and characteristic codes by hand; characteristics go as text without value codes.

«Google Merchant / Meta» mode

• Input — your Google Merchant or Meta feed (RSS or Atom with g: attributes). The rest of the feed is copied as is; only variant attributes change.
• Group, size and color come from a second feed of the same shop (matched by id, then by link, then by SKU), from the same product page URL (option) or from differences in titles — «… 38» / «… 39», colors in Ukrainian, Russian and English.
• Values already present in your feed are not overwritten unless you turn that on.
• Values are brought to Google’s rules: item_group_id up to 50 characters, color — up to three separated by «/», no «see photo» and no digits.

Under the hood

• The feed is read as a stream, so memory does not grow with the catalogue: on the test stand 30,000 products (about 19 MB of YML) converted in 1.5–2 seconds.
• The finished file is served as a static file — Google, Meta or Epicentr fetch it without loading PHP. The new file replaces the old one in one step, so a marketplace never gets a half-written feed.
• External XML entities are not expanded, local network addresses are refused as a source.
• Each customer sees only their own bridges; the finished feed URL contains a random 32-character key.
• Downloaded sources and test files are kept outside the public part of the server.

How to connect

1. Log in or sign up at catcode.com.ua.
2. Open My Account → Feed Bridge and create a bridge.
3. Check the report, then press «Try 7 days free» or buy a licence.
4. Copy the finished feed URL into the Epicentr account or Merchant Center.

What is verified and what is not

• Verified: conversion of real feeds of our demo shops (OpenCart with the Market Feeds module — 23 products, WooCommerce — 41 products with variants) and serving the finished feed from catcode.com.ua; protection against broken, empty and incomplete feeds; limits; licence expiry and renewal.
• Not yet verified: importing the finished file into a real Epicentr seller account and downloading the directory with a live token (requests to the Epicentr API repeat our Epicentr module for WooCommerce, which was checked on a live account), and diagnostics of the variant feed in Google Merchant Center. Connecting first — write to us and we will check it together.