Does your online store or distributor website crash and lose clients every time you try to massively update your suppliers' prices and stock?
In medium-sized e-commerce and distribution (such as hardware stores, pharmacies, or auto parts), the catalog changes daily. Your suppliers send you CSV or XML files with tens of thousands of references. When your team tries to import these files directly into the CMS (like WooCommerce, PrestaShop, or your standard ERP), the database gets saturated. The website becomes extremely slow or shows 504 errors to customers trying to buy, and the import process is cut in half, leaving your stock outdated and causing sales of out-of-stock products.
The trap of Standard Import Plugins
Most SMEs try to solve this by buying a generic import plugin that runs the process on the exact same server where customers are browsing. Forcing your store server to process a hundred thousand lines of Excel while serving shoppers is like forcing the supermarket cashier to restock all the shelves while checking people out.
Our solution: Custom ETL Architecture and Background Processing
At LANZA ESTUDIO, we separate the heavy lifting from your sales. As software architects, we design custom ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) systems with intermediate databases that process catalogs asynchronously without touching your public server.
- Intermediate Databases (Staging): We download your suppliers' files into a private and independent database, isolating the computational work so as not to affect your e-commerce or main ERP.
- Custom Cleaning and Normalization: We program logical rules that clean the data, unify categories from different suppliers, and apply your specific profit margins before publishing.
- Asynchronous Processing (Job Queues): We inject the updated products into your store using background job queues, sending the information in small batches that the server can easily digest.
- Delta Synchronization (Differential): Instead of deleting and rewriting the entire catalog every night, the system compares versions and only updates the products that have actually changed in price or stock, reducing processing time by 90%.
The Real Impact on your Distribution Company
- Zero Server Crashes: Your website and management program run at maximum speed 24 hours a day, regardless of whether you are updating half a million references at that exact moment.
- Stockout Eradication: By processing files efficiently and continuously, your inventory is always synchronized with the factory, eliminating sales of products that no longer exist.
- Massive Administrative Time Savings: Your catalog team stops watching progress bars that freeze and fighting with giant Excels, completely automating the relationship with suppliers.