What is the fastest way to update prices for an ecommerce website?

ecommerce website, update product prices

[mdhussain]

Hi,

I know that this is not exactly a technical discussion forum but I just waned to get some idea as how people handle the issue that we are facing on our website.

We have recently launched an ecommerce website named <snip> and we have successfully added nearly 700 products to our database by collecting them from different suppliers. And we are now facing issue in updating the prices. Since the prices change frequently and the suppliers send us a new pricing list every 1 or 2 days we have to get back to the list of 700 products and check it entirely to update them. As you may understand its not quite easy to change prices for 700 products each day and we usually end up spending hours in the process.

I just wanted to know if any of you guys have experience in using some technique by which the task of updating prices can be done faster and efficiently. Also if you check the website and have any feedback regarding the design or usability etc please do post it. Your feedback and suggestions are highly appreciated. Thanks.

[edited by: buckworks at 2:06 pm (utc) on Feb 24, 2014]
[edit reason] URL drop snipped [/edit]

[piatkow]

Hours to update 700 prices? It sounds to me as if you are using the wrong DBMS.

Seriously if you can't run a script that will update a datebase from a csv file or spreadsheet in a few minutes then you have bought the wrong software.

[mdhussain]

Hello [piatkow],

Thanks for your reply, we are already looking into that option. We actually use the CSV upload technique to update shipping cost to different countries as provided by our shipping service provider. I agree with you, it will save a lot of time while updating prices.

We wanted to know if there is any alternate to using CSV format maybe some software or a really smart technique. Thanks.

[Stickywebz]

CSV knowledge with inventive PHP programming works wonders for a lot of updates.

[Gemstone]

If you figure out a percentage that you want to increase, just put two new columns in your spreadsheet. one the percentage, and one for the result, then just drag the formula down the list. Cut and paste "value only" where your old prices were, Takes about 5 minutes.