Update products prices in Magento easier way

Introduction

In some shared server product prices can be updated via Dataflow profiles > import though but this is very slow and requires lots of csv fields(besides sku & price) for updating or it might get sometimes 500 internal server error due to less memory support.

In this post shows how to talk about updating product prices just by using csv with two fields: sku & price(new) which is very fast enough even for thousands of products.

Steps

1. Prepare CSV file(prices.csv) with two fields: sku & price and upload in the root of Magento installation.
   Please check below snapshot how it should look like:
   Note: Field/Values should be enclosed within double quotes(“) and separated by a comma(,). I would prefer Notepad++ for csv formatting.
2. Most important create a file: update_prices.php and paste the following code:

   <?php
   /**
   * @category Export / Import
   */
   require_once 'app/Mage.php';
   Mage::setIsDeveloperMode(true);
   ini_set('display_errors', 1);
   umask(0);
   Mage::app('admin');
   Mage::register('isSecureArea', 1);
   Mage::app()->setCurrentStore(Mage_Core_Model_App::ADMIN_STORE_ID);set_time_limit(0);
   ini_set('memory_limit','1024M');
   /***************** FUNCTIONS ********************/
   function _getConnection($type = 'core_read'){
   return Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection($type);
   }
   function _getTableName($tableName){
   return Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getTableName($tableName);
   }function _getAttributeId($attribute_code = 'price'){
   $connection = _getConnection('core_read');
   $sql = "SELECT attribute_id FROM " . _getTableName('eav_attribute') . "
   WHERE entity_type_id = ? AND attribute_code = ?";
   $entity_type_id = _getEntityTypeId();
   return $connection->fetchOne($sql, array($entity_type_id, $attribute_code));
   }function _getEntityTypeId($entity_type_code = 'catalog_product'){
   $connection = _getConnection('core_read');
   $sql = "SELECT entity_type_id FROM " . _getTableName('eav_entity_type') . " WHERE entity_type_code = ?";
   return $connection->fetchOne($sql, array($entity_type_code));
   }function _getIdFromSku($sku){
   $connection = _getConnection('core_read');
   $sql = "SELECT entity_id FROM " . _getTableName('catalog_product_entity') . " WHERE sku = ?";
   return $connection->fetchOne($sql, array($sku));}
   
   function _checkIfSkuExists($sku){
   $connection = _getConnection('core_read');
   $sql = "SELECT COUNT(*) AS count_no FROM " . _getTableName('catalog_product_entity') . " WHERE sku = ?";
   $count = $connection->fetchOne($sql, array($sku));
   if($count > 0){
   return true;
   }else{
   return false;
   }
   }
   
   function _updatePrices($data){
   $connection = _getConnection('core_write');
   $sku = $data[0];
   $newPrice = $data[1];
   $productId = _getIdFromSku($sku);
   $attributeId = _getAttributeId();
   
   $sql = "UPDATE " . _getTableName('catalog_product_entity_decimal') . " cped SET cped.value = ? WHERE cped.attribute_id = ? AND cped.entity_id = ?";
   $connection->query($sql, array($newPrice, $attributeId, $productId));
   }
   /***************** FUNCTIONS ********************/
   
   $csv = new Varien_File_Csv();
   $data = $csv->getData('/path/to/skus_prices.csv'); //path to csv
   array_shift($data);
   
   $message = '';
   $count = 1;
   foreach($data as $_data){
   if(_checkIfSkuExists($_data[0])){
   try{
   _updatePrices($_data);
   $message .= $count . '> Success:: While Updating Price (' . $_data[1] . ') of Sku (' . $_data[0] . '). <br />';
   
   }catch(Exception $e){
   $message .= $count .'> Error:: While Upating Price (' . $_data[1] . ') of Sku (' . $_data[0] . ') => '.$e->getMessage().'<br />';
   }
   }else{
   $message .= $count .'> Error:: Product with Sku (' . $_data[0] . ') doesn\'t exist.<br />';
   }
   $count++;
   }
   echo $message;
   ...
   ?>
   

   And upload to root path where magento is installed.

3. Open your browser and run the following url:
   http://www.your-magento-url.com/update_prices.php. You will see how fast the prices are updated in database of corresponding skus.

Hope it works well for those who looking fast import..!!