Spreadsheet import tool for a catalogue of around 60,000 products

The challenge

An IT services partner was rebuilding an online furniture retailer's website on a Joomla-based store. The retailer held its whole catalogue, around 60,000 products, in a spreadsheet, and entering that volume by hand was out of the question.

The data also carried business rules. A column in the spreadsheet determined how each product should be sold: with a Buy Now button, through a quote request cart, or as information only. Products needed to arrive in the right categories with their attributes intact. The partner wanted a repeatable way to bring the retailer's data into the store, starting with a sample so the result could be checked before committing the full catalogue.

What we did

• Admin import tool. We added a product import option to the store's catalogue administration, so staff can upload a product spreadsheet directly from the admin panel.
• Mapping to the retailer's own headings. Rather than forcing the retailer to reshape its data, we built the import around the column headings already used in its spreadsheet.
• Sample import first. We imported sample product data from the retailer's file so the partner could check the result on the test site.
• Template for future imports. We supplied a spreadsheet template listing the required headings, so further batches can be prepared in the correct format.

Tech stack

PHP, MySQL, OpenCart (MijoShop for Joomla), Joomla