SilverMarket — Universal Catalog Updater

The Problem I Wanted to Solve

Shops received price lists from dozens of suppliers — each with its own format. Managers copied prices and stock into admin panels by hand. Hours. Errors. Misery.

Context of the Era

2007: boom of stores (custom/osCommerce), suppliers send Excel/CSV, no standard. Automation = competitive advantage.

My Bet

Build a “universal box”: map fields once, then sync by button or schedule. Excel, CSV, XML, even YML — chew it all.

Outcome

Technically — great: parsers, converters, scheduler, DB/HTTP connectors.

Business — pain: “universal” turned mythical. Every client’s special case broke neat abstractions. Instead of a product, we spawned custom projects per store.

Business Insights

• Universal products drown in custom work without a narrow niche.
• Value is in constraints and ready adapters, not “everything is possible.”

Lessons

• Universal solutions are weak without a tight niche.
• Scalability = less custom, more opinionated boundaries.
• When a “product” morphs into services, rethink positioning.

See also

• EKADoctor — catalog update system