When an online store sells a handful of products, adding them by hand is fine. When it sells thousands, manual entry becomes the main obstacle to launching and to staying accurate afterwards. That was the situation with the Shopify store we built for U.S. Polo Assn. in Albania.
The problem: two systems that did not talk to each other
The business already managed its products and stock in Bilanc, an electronic inventory system widely used in Albania. The online store was going to run on Shopify. Without a connection between the two, every product would have to be typed in twice, and every sale in the physical shops would have to be corrected by hand online.
With a catalog of this size, that approach has three costs:
- Time. Entering thousands of items manually takes weeks before the store can even open.
- Errors. Prices, sizes and codes get mistyped when they are copied by hand.
- Overselling. If stock online is not the real stock, customers order items that are no longer available.
Our approach: a custom-coded integration
A standard app did not cover this case, so we developed a custom-coded integration between Bilanc and Shopify. It does two jobs.
1. Importing products directly
Products are imported from the inventory system straight into the website. The catalog in the store is built from the same data the business already maintains, so nothing has to be entered a second time.
2. Real-time stock synchronization
Every update in the inventory is reflected online. When stock changes, the store changes with it, and customers only see what can actually be delivered.
What changed for the client
- The team maintains products in one place instead of two.
- Countless hours of manual work are saved.
- Customers get a smoother experience, because availability online matches reality.
When does a custom integration make sense?
Not every store needs custom development. In our experience it is worth it when at least one of these is true:
- You have a large catalog that changes often.
- You sell both in physical shops and online from the same stock.
- You already rely on an inventory or accounting system that you do not want to replace.
In those cases the integration pays for itself in saved work and avoided mistakes, and it lets the business grow without adding manual tasks.
Talk to us
This is what custom development means to us: building smart, tailored solutions that make businesses more efficient and scalable. If your store needs to be connected to the system you already use, get in touch and we will look at it together.
