Ecommerce and catalog optimization for the Elephant Sanctuary

The Elephant Sanctuary Brazil store did more than sell products. It helped fund animal care, so every checkout failure carried more weight than it would in a regular shop. When I took over the project, the WordPress and WooCommerce setup had years of accumulated plugins. Some had solved old problems, others no longer made sense, and together they made the experience slow for people trying to buy or donate.

Before touching media spend, the technical base had to be fixed. I reviewed the installation, removed unnecessary extensions, and made the store more predictable. The goal was to remove what was getting in the way before adding anything new. In WooCommerce, that matters: fewer plugin conflicts, shorter response times, and less risk of cart errors.

Once the store was stable, the next problem was the catalog. The Sanctuary needed to promote products on social channels and Google without spending budget on items that were out of stock or had outdated prices. I configured a feed to send product data, availability, and pricing to Google Shopping and Meta Ads automatically.

That changed the quality of distribution. Ads started reflecting what could actually be purchased at that moment. For an operation with a limited media budget, this reduces waste and lets campaigns run on top of a reliable base.