In order to use Woocommerce strictly to manage external products on Amazon, has historically required importing data, and then running daily updates searching for changes to dynamic bits (prices, images, ratings, inventory levels, reviews…). Displaying inaccurate data is a real big no-no for Amazon.
I want to nip that in the bud. for the rendering of basic archive/category pages, only a product name, thumbnail, ASIN, or external_url is required. Everything else really can be displayed on a detail page that are rendered one at a time. That means, stopping the rendering process, grabbing the Amazon Product Advertising API, followed by a continuation of the rendering process either with the results of the API request, or update the Woocommerce CPT data, and then go back to re-fetch the product from Woocommerce.
This is real-time, as needed, updates of Woocommerce data, prior to rendering the detail page. This way, your most popular products are updated once the first time they are requested, and the dogs can lie dormant until someone is interested. No more cron jobs to maintain the data.
All I need is someone to explain how to do this in English. So far, I’ve not been able to find anyone willing to explain anything that doesn’t yield an affiliate commission.