Updating product prices in Magento in an easier & faster way

Introduction

Product prices can be updated via default import profile though but this is very slow and requires lots of CSV fields(besides sku & price) for updating.
Today I am going 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.
You can see the snapshot of how it should look like:

Note: Field/Values should be enclosed within double quotes(“) and separated by a comma(,). I would prefer OpenOffice for CSV formatting.

2> Create a file: update_prices.php in the root of Magento installation and paste the following code:

<?php
/**
 * @author		MagePsycho <[email protected]>
 * @website		https://www.magepsycho.com
 * @category	Export / Import
 */
$mageFilename = 'app/Mage.php';
require_once $mageFilename;
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');

/***************** UTILITY 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));
}
/***************** UTILITY FUNCTIONS ********************/

$csv				= new Varien_File_Csv();
$data				= $csv->getData('prices.csv'); //path to csv
array_shift($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] . ') does\'t exist.<br />';
	}
	$count++;
}
echo $message;

3> Open your browser and run the following URL:
http://your-magento-url/update_prices.php
You will see how fast the prices of corresponding SKUs are updated.
I have tested with 2000 products and the update was accomplished within seconds. Isn’t that fast enough?

EDIT
Recently we have developed an extension for importing all types of prices(regular, special, tier & group prices) via web-interface using the same raw SQL concept. Here goes the link for the extension:
Mass Importer Pro: Price Importer (Regular, Special, Tier & Group Prices)

Thanks for reading. Please share your success story with this code.

Happy Importing!!