300,000-SKU product catalogue: instant search and stable syncs

A custom PHP product information system struggled under 300k+ SKUs: slow searches and fragile Shopify and Shopware syncs. We modernised it in place — no rewrite.

300k+ SKUs in the catalogue
~40% reduction in database load
sec → ms product search time

A high-volume e-commerce retailer manages its entire catalogue — more than 300,000 SKUs — in a custom-built PHP product information management (PIM) system that feeds its storefronts.

The challenge

  • Product searches ran through plain MySQL and had become slow, with timeouts on simple lookups.
  • Synchronisation with Shopify and Shopware was fragile — inventory and prices sometimes failed to update.
  • The codebase was custom PHP without a framework, so onboarding new engineers was hard.

What we did

Our developer integrated into the client’s team and modernised the system from the inside:

  • Moved search and filtering from MySQL to Typesense, with real-time indexing of all 300k products, typo-tolerant search and faceted filtering.
  • Rewrote the Shopify and Shopware sync scripts to respect rate limits, batch properly, retry failed calls and log everything — so inventory stays accurate across channels.
  • Brought modern standards into the legacy code: Composer for dependencies, monolithic functions refactored into reusable classes, and SQL migrations for safe schema changes.

The outcome

Product lookups dropped from seconds to milliseconds, database load fell by roughly 40%, inventory discrepancies between the PIM and the storefronts were virtually eliminated, and the system now scales comfortably with the growing catalogue.

“Your developer didn’t just maintain the system; they evolved it, making our PIM faster and more reliable than ever.” — head of application development

This is PHP application maintenance as we practise it: the system you already own, made faster and safer in place.

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industry

E-commerce & retail

tech stack

PHP, MySQL, Typesense, Shopify, Shopware

service

Maintenance & Support

system risk check

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