Our Tiny Garden
Automated Inventory Sync from Supplier CSV Feeds
Skills applied to this project
Built a custom WooCommerce plugin that automatically syncs product inventory from supplier CSV feeds — eliminating 8+ hours of daily manual data entry and near-eliminating overselling.
What was the problem?
The Our Tiny Garden team received CSV files from their plant supplier each morning with updated stock counts and pricing. A staff member spent 2–3 hours every morning manually updating each product in WooCommerce. Errors were common — overselling out-of-stock plants was a regular occurrence, leading to customer complaints and refunds.
How I solved it
I built a custom WordPress plugin that automatically fetches the supplier's CSV feed via FTP on a scheduled WP Cron job. The plugin parses the CSV, maps supplier SKUs to WooCommerce product IDs, updates stock quantities and prices, logs any unmapped SKUs for review, and sends a daily digest email to the store owner summarizing all changes made.
Measurable results
The daily manual process was fully automated. Staff no longer spend time on inventory data entry. Overselling dropped to near zero. The store owner gets a daily email showing exactly what changed — and can override any sync result directly in the WooCommerce product editor.
- 8+ hours per week of manual data entry eliminated
- Overselling incidents dropped to near zero
- Inventory accuracy improved to 99%+
- Daily digest email gives owner full visibility into sync activity
- Unmapped SKU detection prevents silent inventory gaps
Technical highlights
- Custom WordPress plugin with admin settings UI
- WP Cron job with configurable FTP source and run schedule
- CSV parser with SKU-to-product-ID mapping table
- Change detection: only updates stock and price when values differ
- WP action scheduler for background batch processing on large catalogs
- Admin digest email with full per-product change log
My process applied to this project
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Diagnose
Understand the real business problem, user flow, and technical constraints before touching code.
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Plan
Choose the cleanest technical approach, identify dependencies, and define what success looks like.
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Build
Create custom WordPress/PHP solutions, plugins, integrations, or automations using best practices.
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Test
Validate edge cases, staging behavior, logs, checkout flows, order statuses, and user roles.
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Deploy
Release carefully with rollback awareness, staging verification, and clear documentation.
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Improve
Monitor, optimize, and refine based on real usage, client feedback, and production behavior.
Tech used in this project
How AI accelerated this work
AI tools helped me review error logs, trace query patterns, and generate diagnostic hypotheses in minutes rather than hours — so I could focus on fixing, not searching.
I used AI to audit integration logic, catch silent failure paths, and validate that custom hooks would hold up under different WooCommerce states before going live.
AI-assisted documentation made the final plugin handoff clear and actionable for the client's internal team — reducing support questions after delivery.
Have a similar challenge?
I help e-commerce teams solve the technical problems that cost them time and revenue. Let's talk about yours.
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