Start Part 2 - Discontinued Items, Out of Stock, Manage Images
Click Options > Manual Update and we'll continue with the setup of STCtoCart. The following buttons do not need to be selected in any order.
1. Discontinued Items
2. Out of Stock
3. Upload Images <-- Be advised that 15,000 images can take approximately 1 hour to finish downloading.
#1 Will download the latest discontinued.csv file from STC, then it will match that file against your shopping cart's data base. Removing any items that have been discontinued.
#2 Will download the latest out_of_stock.csv file from STC, then it will adjust the QTY of your shopping cart's data base. If an item is in stock it will put a 1 in the QTY, if the item is out of stock it will put an 0 in the QTY. So you will need to adjust your shopping cart's admin area for STOCK > Check Stock Level = false and Subtract Stock = false.
Note: Some have asked me to make the in stock number larger so they could do some kind of stock level check. This is not possible, STCtoCart would need to remember the stock status of each and every product. As long as STC only gives In and Out of Stock with 1 and 0. Then this will have to stay the same. Additionally in my humble opinion with the number of web sites selling from the various vendors, any info given would be out of date almost immediately.
#3 Will copy images from STC to /images/STC directory you created during the installation. It renames the images to match the products SKU, this makes sure that one image is available per each product. It does not copy an image if one is already there, so the speed increase for updates. Again remember the first time you do this can take an hour to complete when everything is optimal. Many things can affect the overall speed of this process. Like server settings, distance from your server to STC, internet traffic especially and DDos attacks in your IP Block / Region. GoDaddy hosted users will notice this the most due to their server settings and overloaded servers with domains.
In connection with the "Upload Images" button there are three other buttons:
4. Missing STC Images
5. Remove Unused Images
6. Delete All Images
#4 Checks you /images/STC directory for 404 error pages that where copied during the upload. Then it removes those pages so your shopping cart can use a default image.
#5 Matches the image SKU name against your shopping cart's database, and deletes those that do not match.
#6 Is fairly self explanatory, it deletes all images in your shopping cart /images/STC directory!