What is cron?

Cron is a task scheduler on a server. Instead of running a script manually, you set when it should run: every hour, once a day at a specific time, or on selected days of the week. In online stores, cron handles tasks that must occur regularly but do not require human intervention.

Typical uses include exchanging data with other systems (retrieving price lists and inventory levels from ERP, shipping orders), refreshing search engine indexes, generating product feeds, and sending overdue notifications. If a cron job fails to run or ends with an error, the store will display outdated data; therefore, it’s a good idea to log the results in a history visible to the administrator.