Caster Technology Corporation
Automated Catalog Management
Client Overview
Caster Technology Corporation, a leading industrial manufacturer and retailer, operates both brick-and-mortar stores and online channels. Facing a massive product catalogue and a multi-store architecture, they required an eCommerce solution that could scale seamlessly — and reliably — to support millions of SKUs across multiple storefronts.
Challenge
The client faced two major hurdles:
- They needed to push 2 million product SKUs, already stored in their ERP system, into their online store. Creating product descriptions, attributes, and images manually for that volume would have been impractical.
- Because they were supporting a multi-store solution (initially 12 stores with a plan to grow to 50), each product needed to be able to carry multiple names, descriptions and images across storefronts — adding a layer of complexity to the data pipeline.
They needed an automated, robust pipeline that could synchronise the ERP catalogue, resize and watermark images, generate descriptions, and handle multi-store content, all with minimal manual effort.
Solution
We implemented a sophisticated custom integration on the nopCommerce platform to automate the data and image ingestion pathway from ERP to storefront.
- A custom middle-tier application that communicated between the ERP system and nopCommerce.
- Logic using the 16-character product SKU structure to generate product descriptions and attributes automatically.
- An image processing system that performed bulk resizing, watermarking and pushed images to Microsoft Azure CDN.
- Push mechanisms to populate descriptions, attributes and images into nopCommerce; pull services retrieving images from CDN for storefront use.
- A customised administration panel allowing for multiple names and descriptions per product per store — enabling localisation or store-specific branding.
- Auto-store detection logic that changed the store theme, logo and colours dynamically based on store code — ensuring each storefront looked tailored.
Results
- Successfully populated 2 million product SKUs into the platform hands-free, with no manual intervention required at the catalogue ingestion level.
- Supported 12 stores on a single platform, and positioned the architecture to scale up to 50 stores in the future.
- Freed the client’s team from the bottleneck of manual data-entry and catalogue creation — shifting focus to optimisation, marketing and growth.
- Delivered a maintainable system ready for future enhancements (for example deeper eCommerce capabilities such as pricing, tax via Avalara, full checkout flows).