David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

Price Tapestry is a script that allows me to upload CSV and XML feeds and it converts them into MySQL database entries. It then provides an interface for someone to search for the cheapest price for particular products.

What it cannot do is compare product features. After all, the only product data that it can extract is from the XML or CSV file and that is usually restricted to product name, product price, product price and retailer name.

Hence, I have spent the last two days building a feature comparison.
 
It works off the back of Price Tapestry database. Price Tapestry converts the CSV or XML file to MySQL database entries, then my script pulls data from this database table and another dedicated one.

Here's a screenshot of it:



So why did I bother?

I analysed the statistics for the last week and found a lot of people were searching for easy product comparison of systems. As there was nothing on my site that really satisfied their search, I decided to create a custom application.

On a technical note, the application has no back-end and so I have to enter the data in directly to the database. I would love to add a back-end application but in all fairness, it is only me who will use it so why bother?

Also, it is doubtful that this will ever make a commercial release as a Price Tapestry add-on due to the very specific nature of the database. The script has been custom built to suit a sat nav perspective. Maybe in the future, I will tidy it up, make it generic and then release it to the general public.

If you would be interested in paying for an add-on like this, please contact me and a) tell me that you would be interested and b) how much you would be prepared to pay for such a feature. If I get a reasonable amount of feedback, I will crack on with making this a reality at an average price suggested. Sounds fair? I look forward to hearing from you!

The side-by-side comparison database needs to be populated so at the moment, the comparison will be very restrictive. But give it a few days and I will add more models. You can view the Side-By-Side Satellite Navigation Comparison here.

Here's an example of TomTom Go 510 versus TomTom Go 710 versus TomTom Go 910.