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Three thousand products, and nobody can retype them

The online store plan stalls at step one. The products already exist in a spreadsheet, on a marketplace, or in an old system, but moving them one by one means months of manual work nobody wants.

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Why this happens

It is almost never a matter of effort. These are the patterns we keep running into.

The data exists, but the shape is a mess

Product names are inconsistent, one column holds two facts, variants live in a notes field, and prices come in several versions. The row count is not the problem; cleaning it is.

Images are scattered everywhere

Product photos sit in a phone folder, on a marketplace, and in a shared drive with filenames that do not match any product code. Matching images to products often takes longer than moving the data.

Stock drifts the moment you move

Once the store runs alongside a physical shop and a marketplace, stock is counted in three places. Without a single source of truth, double selling is a matter of time.

Customers cannot find anything

A large catalogue without real categories, filters, and search is the same as an empty one. Visitors give up on page two.

How we fix it

  1. 01

    Column mapping before import

    We read your file as it is, then map its columns onto a product structure: name, code, variant, price, stock, weight, category. Anything broken comes back as a list, not a silent guess.

  2. 02

    Bulk import you can repeat

    Import is not a one off event. Once the mapping exists you can upload a new file to add products or update prices without touching what already sells.

  3. 03

    One source of stock

    Stock is counted in one place and read by the store, the till, and the marketplace. A sale on any channel moves the same number.

  4. 04

    Search and filters people actually use

    Categories are rebuilt around how customers search, not how the warehouse stores. Size, colour, and price filters ship from day one.

What it looks like

The page a prospective buyer sees, on a large screen and on a phone.

What this screen shows

  • Order now
  • PVC Hose 1/2 inch
  • Brass Garden Tap
  • Elbow Joint 3/4 inch

Case study

Industrial tooling distribution

Situation

More than three thousand product codes spread across spreadsheets named differently each year, plus thousands of photos whose filenames matched no product code.

What we built

Columns were mapped and cleaned, duplicate codes were reported for the owner to decide, images were matched automatically by code, and stock was unified so the store reads the same number as the warehouse.

Result

  • The full catalogue went online with no retyping
  • Prices can be updated in bulk from one file
  • Stock is no longer counted separately per channel
  • New products arrive by upload, not by manual entry

Packages

Pick the one closest to your situation. We tighten the scope in the first conversation.

Catalog Launch Package, 1,000+ products ready to sell

Your whole catalogue lands in a store that can take orders, with nothing retyped.

Who it is for

Distributors, wholesalers, or shops with hundreds to thousands of codes still living in spreadsheets or a marketplace.

What you get

  • Column mapping and cleaning from your own file
  • Bulk import of products, variants, prices, and stock
  • Product image matching by code
  • Categories, filters, and search built for a large catalogue
  • A report of broken rows for you to decide on
  • A year of content changes included
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Order Engine Package

Orders arrive, get paid, and ship without switching apps or re-entering anything.

Who it is for

Stores whose catalogue is online but whose orders still move through chat and handwritten notes.

What you get

  • Automated payment by transfer, card, and QR
  • Automatic shipping rates per courier and region
  • Order status customers can check themselves
  • One stock figure across store, till, and marketplace
  • Everything in the Catalog Launch Package
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Questions we get asked

Our file is messy and inconsistent. Can it still be imported?

Yes, and that is the normal starting point. Cleaning it is the actual work: columns get mapped, price formats normalised, variants separated. Genuinely ambiguous rows come back as a list for you to decide, rather than us guessing.

Our products are already on a marketplace. Can they be pulled from there?

Yes. Product data and images are pulled from your marketplace store as a starting point, then cleaned like any spreadsheet import. Descriptions usually need review, because marketplace formatting rarely suits your own product pages.

If prices change monthly, do we re-import everything?

No. You upload a file with product codes and new prices only; nothing else is touched. The mapping is reused, so a price update becomes a few minutes of work.

How long until the store can take orders?

What sets the timeline is data condition, not product count. A clean file with thousands of rows moves faster than a few hundred rows with mixed columns. Once we see your file we can give a sensible estimate.

Problems that usually come together

A customer leaves empty handed while the item sits at the next branch
Serious buyers visit your site, then pick the factory next door
Ten million a month on ads, and nobody knows which one sells

Tell us the situation first

No long form. Send one message describing where you are now and we reply with a sensible next step, not a mass quote.

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