# General information
### Synchronizing products
External Importer can automatically update **prices** and **stock status** for imported products in your WooCommerce store.
You can configure synchronization at:\
**External Importer → Settings → Synchronization**
#### How synchronization works
Many online stores change prices and availability frequently.\
External Importer doesn’t provide *real-time* prices in your WooCommerce catalog, but it will periodically refresh product data based on your sync settings.
A few important points:
* **No real-time pricing**\
External Importer updates products on a schedule, not instantly on every price change at the source.
* **Avoid too-frequent updates**\
If you sync very often – especially for many products from the same store – you increase the risk of being throttled or blocked by that source.\
We recommend using a **moderate update interval**, not the shortest possible one.
* **Show last update date on the frontend (optional)**\
You can display when a product was last updated on the product page.\
Go to: **External Importer → Settings → Frontend → Update period** and enable the option.
#### Synchronization modes
External Importer offers two ways to update products:
**1. Frontend synchronization**
When **Frontend synchronization** is enabled, a product can be updated **when a visitor opens its product page**.
**Pros:**
* Only products that actually receive traffic will be updated.
* Reduces unnecessary requests for products that nobody views.
**Cons:**
* Occasionally, visitors may notice a **slight delay** when loading the product page, while new data is being requested from the source.
**2. Cron synchronization (recommended for background updates)**
With **Cron synchronization**, External Importer runs a scheduled sync in the background using the built-in **WordPress cron** system.
* **No additional cron setup is required.**
* The sync script is launched approximately every **10 minutes**.
* Under typical conditions, it can update up to **2,500 products per day** (depending on your hosting and source throttling).
This mode keeps your catalog updated **without impacting page load time** for visitors.
#### Per-product sync controls
You can control synchronization for each product individually on the product edit screen.
On the **product edit page**, look for the **External Importer Sync** meta box (sidebar):
* **Last update & status**\
You’ll see the **last synced time**, current **availability**, and sync **status** (success/error).
* **Manual update (“Sync now”)**\
Click **Sync now** to immediately refresh this product’s data from the source.
* **Disable automatic sync for a product**\
If you don’t want External Importer to update a specific product automatically:
1. Open the product in the editor.
2. In the **External Importer Sync** widget, enable **“Disable auto-sync”**.
3. The product will **no longer be included** in automatic synchronization, but you can still use **Sync now** at any time.
This is useful when you’ve manually edited a product and don’t want your changes to be overwritten.
