E-commerce Store with Automated Dropshipping
WooCommerce with a custom XML importer for a dropshipping supplier — 2,700 SKUs, 6h sync, automatic margins, FastCGI cache. Import time < 5 min, page load < 1s.
Challenge
The client wanted an online store with automatic product synchronisation from a dropshipping supplier — prices, stock levels, descriptions, categories. The supplier provided an XML file with 2,700 products updated several times a day. Standard import plugins were too slow and didn’t handle margin logic.
Solution
Custom PHP importer parsing the XML feed: EAN-based diff updates only changed products (dramatically shortens import time), automatic margin calculation using a configurable multiplier per category, supplier category mapping to the WooCommerce category tree.
nginx with server-level FastCGI cache — cached category and product pages served directly from nginx without PHP involvement. Redis as WooCommerce object cache. Cron schedule: import every 6 hours, cache purge after import.
Results
- 2,700 products synced in < 5 minutes (full import) / < 1 minute (delta)
- Home page load time: < 1s (FastCGI cache)
- Zero manual price updates since deployment — fully automated