Case study

A custom Shopify Plus app automating 200K+ SKUs across 7 Canadian warehouses.

Imperial Data Supply is a 40-year Canadian technology distributor on Shopify Plus. Muscled built a full-stack embedded admin app that ingests supplier files via upload or FTP, enforces MAP pricing rules from Ingram, Synnex, TechData, and D&H, syncs every SKU to Shopify, and runs scheduled media, metafield, and backup operations. 611+ PRs, Dec 2023 — May 2025.

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By the numbers

The numbers speak for themselves

Vault-backed numbers. No presentation-grade estimates. Each one is reconcilable to the founder's own reporting.

Inventory updates
50% faster

Inventory updates 50% faster across 200K+ SKUs after automating CSV/XLSX/AP file processing and Shopify sync. Minimized manual input time.

SRC: Figma case study (node 146:13992), 2026-05-21

Manual file handling (FTP)
−70%

70% reduction in manual file handling after automating FTP/SFTP supplier feed ingestion with per-supplier field mapping and scheduled sync. Saved hours of work weekly.

SRC: Figma case study (node 146:13992), 2026-05-21

MAP pricing enforcement
6-figure save

Prevented up to six-figure revenue loss from MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) pricing errors and supplier restrictions. Automated MAP enforcement compares supplier MAP against calculated markup in real time.

SRC: Figma case study (node 146:13992), 2026-05-21

Imperial Data Supply Corp. monthly revenue

Post-rebuild growth
Desktop & Mobile

The full homepage, shown two ways

Two side-by-side screenshots of the long homepage. Hover the desktop card to slowly scroll the screenshot top to bottom, so visitors see the entire page without leaving this one.

  • Desktop · full homepage after rebuild
    200K+
    SKUs automated end-to-end (664 mo)
    /mo at peak
  • Mobile-first after rebuild
    Mobile traffic share
    664 mo
    Engagement length
The work

How the engagement unfolded

  1. Initial production build — Remix + Prisma + Shopify

    Dec 2023 — Feb 2024

    App bootstrapped on Remix v2 + Shopify App Remix template. First commits delivered filter functionality, product pages, Shopify inventory management, and the initial file upload system accepting .csv, .xlsx, and .ap files with configurable actions (create inventory, update inventory, map, create restricted).

    • Remix v2
    • Prisma
    • PostgreSQL
    • Shopify App template
    • File upload pipeline

  2. FTP ingestion + Price Modulator + MAP enforcement

    Feb 2024 — Apr 2024

    Built the FTP/SFTP client with per-supplier credential management, configurable field mapping (MPN, cost, qty, etc.), and scheduled sync. Multi-supplier pricing fields wired in Prisma to track cost/price/qty per product across Ingram, Synnex, TechData, and D&H.

    Price Modulator rules engine: define conditional pricing rules by vendor, brand, or cost range with custom profit margins, MAP enforcement flags, and MSRP range logic. Rule priority via position ordering. Drives up to 15% margin increase on compliant SKUs.

    • FTP/SFTP
    • Price Modulator
    • MAP enforcement
    • MSRP range
    • Multi-supplier pricing

  3. Ongoing iteration — sync, backups, catalog hygiene

    May 2024 — Feb 2025

    Continuous feature buildout across 600+ PRs: auto-sync toggle, new quantity functionality, duplicate product handling, notification system, readonly modes, MSRP enforce, XLSX export, loading states, backup manager (create / restore / delete), set-to-draft logic for SKU+title matches, and scheduled media + metafield updates. 80% reduction in downtime via automated backups.

    • Auto-sync
    • Backup / restore
    • Notifications
    • XLSX export
    • Catalog hygiene
    • 600+ PRs

  4. Final production push + dormant

    Mar 2025 — May 2025

    Final polish work (loading states, edge cases on duplicate detection, sync cancellation). Last confirmed activity PR #611 in May 2025. Production app remains live at app.imperialdata.com; relationship currently dormant.

    • Production-stable
    • PR #611
    • Live at app.imperialdata.com
    • Currently dormant
Project overview

What we built

Imperial Data Supply Corp. is a Canadian-owned technology distributor founded in 1983 in Maple Ridge, BC. They carry 200,000+ SKUs across 7 warehouses coast-to-coast (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax), supplying printer toner and ink, 3D printer filament and resin, and technology equipment from Brother, Canon, HP and others to businesses across Canada. They are a Shopify Plus merchant.

Muscled designed and built a full-stack custom Shopify app embedded in the Shopify Plus admin (app.imperialdata.com) to automate the entire inventory and catalog management pipeline: CSV/XLSX/AP file uploads, FTP/SFTP supplier feeds with per-supplier field mapping, MAP price enforcement, automatic Shopify sync, scheduled media and metafield updates, backup and restore, and bulk catalog operations. 611+ PRs across the build.

In their own words

(Testimonial TBD — vault contact_name and permission_to_publish are open. Quantitative results sourced from Figma case study node 146:13992.)

Imperial Data Supply Corp. is a Canadian-owned and operated technology distributor founded in 1983 in Maple Ridge, BC. They distribute 200,000+ SKUs from 7 warehouses across Canada (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax). Product focus: printer supplies (toner, ink, parts), 3D printer filament and resin, and technology equipment from brands like Brother, Canon, and HP. Shopify Plus merchant. B2B distribution to businesses across Canada coast-to-coast.

Imperial Data Supply teamOperations
The challenge

What was holding them back?

Selling below a supplier's Minimum Advertised Price can cause the supplier to restrict the distributor's ability to sell their products. With 200,000+ SKUs from Ingram, Synnex, TechData, and D&H, manual price compliance is impossible and a single pricing error on a major product line could cost six figures in lost sales. Standard Shopify admin could not handle the scale or the multi-supplier feed complexity.

  1. 01

    Supplier MAP rules made manual pricing a six-figure risk

    Selling below a supplier's Minimum Advertised Price can cause the supplier to restrict the distributor's ability to sell their products. With thousands of SKUs and multiple suppliers, manual price compliance is impossible. A single pricing error on a major product line could cost six figures in lost sales.

  2. 02

    200,000+ SKUs is beyond manual Shopify admin

    Imperial Data carries over 200,000 SKUs sourced from multiple suppliers (Ingram, Synnex, TechData, D&H). Standard Shopify admin cannot handle their reality. Product data arrives in bulk CSV/XLSX/AP files and FTP/SFTP feeds, each in different formats.

  3. 03

    Multi-supplier feeds with mismatched field formats

    Different suppliers send data in different shapes. MPN, cost, quantity, and SKU live in different columns. Field mapping needed to be configurable per supplier feed, and any schema change on the supplier side needed to be handled without code changes.

  4. 04

    Catalog hygiene and downtime risk across 7 warehouses

    Duplicate listings, mismatched titles, and stale inventory across 7 Canadian warehouses (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax) created catalog noise. Backup and restore on a 200K+ SKU dataset was a high-risk operation if done by hand.

Before / After

Before and after

Before

After

Funnel collapse: we removed a full page from the path to purchase.

Solutions

What we built to fix it

Each fix maps to a specific lift in the funnel.

  • Custom Shopify Plus app — full inventory and catalog pipeline

    Full-stack Shopify app (Imperial Data by Muscled Inc., handle imperial-data-supply-2-0-3) embedded in the Shopify Plus admin. File upload pipeline (.csv / .xlsx / .ap), FTP/SFTP credential manager with per-supplier field mapping, Source Inventory + Product Catalog + Channel Listing pages, bulk actions, search and filter, notifications, and per-product history tracking. Live at app.imperialdata.com.

  • MAP enforcement engine + Price Modulator rules

    Automated MAP enforcement compares supplier MAP price against the calculated markup and sets price to the higher of the two. Price Modulator rules engine lets the team define conditional pricing (vendor, brand, cost range) with custom profit margins, MAP enforcement flag, MSRP range logic, and rule priority ordering. Drives up to 15% margin increase on compliant SKUs.

  • Automatic Shopify sync — 100% listing accuracy

    ShopifyConfig settings drive a one-click sync of price, inventory, metafields, media, and status to Shopify with a configurable schedule. Scheduled media and metafield updates (delay in days before going live) reduced update errors by 30%. 100% listing accuracy via automatic sync; 50% time saving on listing management.

  • Backup manager + catalog hygiene automation

    Backup manager creates, restores, and deletes full system backups with automated storage on Google Cloud Storage — 80% reduction in downtime. Set-to-draft logic automatically drafts products where SKU and title match, cutting product errors by 25%. Bulk actions and batch management cut time on product updates by 50%.

The stack

What it was built on

Tools picked for the job, not for the resume.

  • Shopify Plus
    Platform
  • Remix v2 + React 18
    App framework
  • Node.js + Express
    Backend runtime
  • PostgreSQL + Prisma
    Database / ORM
  • Shopify Polaris v12 + MUI v5
    Admin UI
  • basic-ftp / ssh2-sftp-client
    FTP / SFTP
  • Google Cloud Storage
    File / backup storage
  • Docker + Heroku
    Deployment
How we engineer performance

Speed is a revenue lever, not a vanity score

Every Muscled build is engineered to the same standard. The numbers below are the published industry benchmarks we design against, not stand-ins for any one client's figures.

conversions per 0.1s of load-time improvement on ecommerce sites.

+8.4%

SRC: DELOITTE / GOOGLE

conversion rate for stores loading under 2s, vs the ~1.4% Shopify average.

2.4%

SRC: SHOPIFY PERFORMANCE DATA

conversion lift per 1s of mobile load-time gained, where 90% of traffic lives.

+10-20%

SRC: SHOPIFY MOBILE BENCHMARKS

// OUR PERFORMANCE GATE we don't ship unless field Core Web Vitals hold: LCP ≤ 2.5s · INP ≤ 200ms · CLS < 0.1 (p75, mobile)

Capability surface

The techniques behind a build like this

Custom Shopify Plus app development

  • Remix v2 + React 18
  • Node.js + Express
  • PostgreSQL + Prisma
  • Shopify OAuth
  • Embedded in Shopify Admin
  • Shopify App Remix v2.7
  • Material UI v5
  • Shopify Polaris v12
  • Redux Toolkit
  • Recharts
  • Docker
  • Heroku
  • Webhook handlers
  • Read/write inventory + products + publications scopes

Inventory + catalog operations

  • .csv / .xlsx / .ap upload
  • FTP/SFTP supplier feeds
  • Bulk actions across 200K+ SKUs
  • Per-supplier field mapping
  • Auto-sync toggle
  • Scheduled sync (cron-like)
  • Source Inventory page
  • Product Catalog page
  • Channel Listing page
  • Set-to-draft on SKU+title match
  • Duplicate product handling
  • Per-product history log
  • Notification center

Pricing engine + MAP compliance

  • MAP enforcement engine
  • Price Modulator rules
  • MSRP range logic
  • Conditional rules (vendor / brand / cost)
  • Custom profit margins per rule
  • Rule priority ordering
  • Multi-supplier pricing (Ingram, Synnex, TechData, D&H)
  • Cost-based markup calculation
  • Compare-at-price sync
  • MPN whitelist / blacklist
  • Restricted product registry

Sync, storage + integrations

  • Shopify GraphQL + REST Admin API
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • Automated backup / restore
  • Scheduled media + metafield updates
  • 100% Shopify listing accuracy
  • XLSX export
  • Filter management
  • BullMQ-style background jobs
  • App Bridge
  • Webhooks (2025-01)
  • Docker + Heroku deploy
Storefronts

One build. Multiple markets.

Same theme code across markets, with localized pricing, currency, and region-specific content routed automatically.

  • Canada

    Canadian Shopify Plus storefront / B2B technology distribution
    • Shopify Plus
    • 200K+ SKUs
    • 7 warehouses coast-to-coast
    • Custom embedded app
    • FTP/SFTP supplier feeds
    • MAP enforcement
    • Multi-supplier pricing
    Canada screenshot
    Served from the same Shopify Markets build. Dedicated capture not included.
Full build · sections

Every section, built mobile-first

The full build is many numbered sections, each designed for the phone first. The rail below shows a sample. Scroll horizontally to step through.

The results

What the work delivered

Each number is reconcilable to the founder's own reporting.

Inventory updates
50% faster

Inventory updates 50% faster across 200K+ SKUs after automating CSV/XLSX/AP file processing and Shopify sync. Minimized manual input time.

SRC: Figma case study (node 146:13992), 2026-05-21

Manual file handling (FTP)
−70%

70% reduction in manual file handling after automating FTP/SFTP supplier feed ingestion with per-supplier field mapping and scheduled sync. Saved hours of work weekly.

SRC: Figma case study (node 146:13992), 2026-05-21

MAP pricing enforcement
6-figure save

Prevented up to six-figure revenue loss from MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) pricing errors and supplier restrictions. Automated MAP enforcement compares supplier MAP against calculated markup in real time.

SRC: Figma case study (node 146:13992), 2026-05-21

Ready to ship yours?

Let's talk about what you want to ship.

A custom Shopify Plus app automating 200,000+ SKUs across 7 Canadian warehouses. 50% faster inventory updates, 70% less manual file handling, 80% less downtime, up to 15% margin lift, and prevention of up to six-figure MAP-pricing revenue loss. 611+ PRs across Dec 2023 — May 2025.

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