Catalog Data Merge Plugins

For thousands of products with multiple sections and styles, the thing that breaks native Data Merge usually isn't the record count — it's that Data Merge binds one template to one dataset. The moment your product families need genuinely different layouts, you end up maintaining several merge documents and stitching the output together, which is where the time actually goes.

Two questions that would change my answer:

1. Do your "sections/styles" differ in layout (different frame arrangements per family) or only in styling (same structure, different paragraph/object styles)? The first needs a different approach entirely; the second is often solvable with object styles and nested styles alone.
2. Are your product images consistently named and all present? Missing or inconsistently named assets cause more failed catalog merges than any layout issue — worth auditing the source file before choosing any tool.

On the tooling itself, roughly in order of investment: scripting the merge yourself if you have the resources; Colin Flashman's write-ups at colecandoo.com, which are the best free material on data merge at this scale; and the commercial plugins.

Disclosure: I develop one of those — a paid UXP plugin suite for variable data publishing in InDesign. I'm not going to pitch it here; happy to talk through the approach either way, including if the answer is that you don't need a plugin at all.