Manage product pricing on large database?

[olimits7]

Hello,

I'm just looking for some ideas on an easier way to manage product pricing on a large database?

My problem is I have a product database that consists of 20,000 products; so when I want to chenge a price I usually go into excel, change the prices, and then reupload my products.

Is there a better way to do this?

Thank you,

olimits7

[LifeinAsia]

Absolutely- make an admin section to let you select individual products (or groups of products) and edit the prices (as well as descriptions and other information you may want to periodically change) online in real-time.

[jtara]

then reupload my products.

To what? In what form? Do you publish HTML from Excel? Where do the prices go? To a database? To HTML pages (through some intermediate steps?)

Most typically, online stores have their prices and other details stored in a database (MySQL, etc.) on/near the website, and software (PHP, etc.) that generates pages from the database.

This is not typically "the" pricing database, which is typically part of some application software run internally. There's typically some process for updating new prices from the internal database to the website database.

If you have a small store, have no (or minimal) physical presence, you certainly could use the website database as "the" database. You'd have an admin section where you could update prices and other details, add new products, etc.

[olimits7]

I upload the products to my mysql database.

But I will probably need to develop an internal software that can sync with my website; so I can simplify this process.

Thanks,

olimits7

[jtara]

What's wrong with the current process?

Is it slow, or does it just bug you that you are uploading 20,000 products, when only a half-dozen are changing?

I'd think this would take less than a minute to update (I have a database table of 750,000 records that loads in about a minute).

Unless it's taking a long time to update, I'd say it ain't broke, so there's nothing to fix.

Your biggest problem right now is that I imagine your Excel rows aren't timestamped and/or don't have a "price change" indicator, so you can't pick out just the prices that have changed. But you should be able to implement some sort of mechanism in Excel that will allow you to upload only the changes.

[olimits7]

The actual function of uploading the products isn't slow; I guess it's the uploading of 20,000 products when only half-dozen are changing. :-)

Yes, I don't have a "price change" indicator or timestamp in my excel file; I think this would help my price management process a lot.

What do you think is the best method to implement a "price change" indicator to my excel sheet?

Thank you, again.

olimits7

[olimits7]

The actual function of uploading the products isn't slow; I guess it's the uploading of 20,000 products when only half-dozen are changing. :-)

Yes, I don't have a "price change" indicator or timestamp in my excel file; I think this would help my price management process a lot.

What do you think is the best method to implement a "price change" indicator to my excel sheet?

Thank you, again.

olimits7

[olimits7]

The actual function of uploading the products isn't slow; I guess it's the uploading of 20,000 products when only half-dozen are changing. :-)

Yes, I don't have a "price change" indicator or timestamp in my excel file; I think this would help my price management process a lot.

What do you think is the best method to implement a "price change" indicator to my excel sheet?

Thank you, again.

olimits7

[olimits7]

Sorry for the multiple posts; I don't know what happened there...lol. :-)