Importing a product catalog into an ecommerce site

Objective

Putting a product catalog online on an ecommerce site is often done with the help of an import.

In many cases, manual publication of each product is not an option for catalogs containing several thousand products.

In most cases, the catalog exists in a variety of forms: excel spreadsheets, ERP, etc.

Appropriate processing of this data enables the entire product catalog to be imported for rapid publication on the ecommerce site.

PrestaShop catalog import

Use the PrestaShop connector with one or more other connectors as required.

WooCommerce product catalog import

Use the WooCommecre connector with one or more other connectors as required.

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Related issues

Server resource limitations are a major constraint, as standard import systems are not natively optimized to handle tens of thousands of entries in the site’s database.

These imports often trigger server timeouts that interrupt the import process.

Without a reliable resume mechanism, an interrupted import after several hours of processing must be restarted from the beginning!

Specific tools like WP All Import for WooCommerce or PrestaShop’s native import module quickly reach their limits when dealing with large volumes.

The structure of the source data is rarely compatible with the e-commerce platform’s schema. Complex mapping is required for specific attributes (variants, options, technical specifications).

Product media management is particularly problematic, with challenges related to downloading, resizing, and optimizing thousands of images.

Incremental updates are a critical point — synchronizing changes to prices, stock, or descriptions must be done without duplicating existing products.

The integration of related data (categories, brands, suppliers) often requires complex dependency logic to maintain catalog consistency.

Memory management and SQL query optimization become major concerns to prevent server overload during regular import processes.

Case studies

A French equipment manufacturer produces and sells mechanical parts used by industrial clients in sectors such as railways, aerospace, and more across Europe.

The catalog of these parts includes thousands of variants with numerous options and characteristics.

The company’s entire commercial activity is managed using a Divalto ERP. Therefore, the product catalog database is also maintained within the ERP, along with pricing, stock levels, and production scheduling.

However, since the ERP is not optimized for this use, the data structure differs significantly from that used by the e-commerce site.

The implemented gateway enables synchronization between the Divalto product reference database and the e-commerce site’s product database.

All heavy data conversion processes are centralized on the resources of the Hub4commerce platform.