In e-commerce, catalog management is a process where you ensure that the product database is structured, organized, and kept up to date across each and every online sales channel. It is a vital part of building a successful online brand as it helps the customers to find what they’re looking for and make an informed purchase based on the information given. 

Product catalogs for different online stores will include color options, size, price, materials, etc.

E-commerce Catalog Management: Why is It Important to Retailers?

The online shopping industry is booming and continues to grow each and every day as customers are looking to shop everything online. Online shopping provides a lot of convenience to most of its customers, but when it comes to difficult purchasing decisions like make-up, apparel, or home furnishing, which must be of a specific size, or fit. 

Hence customers must be given as many details as possible to make a comfortable purchase.

Poor or inaccurate catalog management can cause problems and result in fewer sales. Customers might feel reluctant to make a purchase, and there can be a higher volume of returns because of this inaccuracy.

Proper catalog management will help you improve your online store as it would be much easier to upload product information to the product pages and keep them organized.

How to Create an E-commerce Product Catalog

Making an e-commerce product catalog is fundamental for any company and its customers. Before you start creating a product catalog, make sure that you understand the following-

• What is the purpose of the catalog?
• What sort of response are you expecting?
• Do you wish to get more sales and customers or increase brand awareness?

The next thing I should be considered is understanding what kind of customers your product catalog will be targeting. If you are aware of your specific audience, you would be able to adjust the tone and style of the catalog-like its language, design, and SEO. So when the customers find what they are looking for, traffic and sales conversion will increase.

It would be best to consider getting yourself an excellent digital catalog software that will help you control the product content quality.

How to Manage an E-commerce Product Catalog

To maintain a proper product catalog, these are some ways you can apply.

1. Building trust with quality product information. This means that why providing information for digital products you are mean boys should be to ensure that the customers are comfortable with shopping on your site. Keep the information as comprehensive as possible and ensure that all the information is up-to-date.
2. It is essential that you tag and categorize all your products and ensure that all the tags are consistent.
3. Try to map out the catalog management process to clearly understand what part of the catalog management process is attached by the stakeholders or when they can be affected during the process.
4. Make sure that you try to excel and cross-sell by suggesting related products in the catalog, as it is an easy way to increase order values.
5. Choose a proper catalog management tool, and you should decide on one, keeping in mind your existing text tech, the complexity of the catalog, the business size, or if you have plans to expand.
6. Try balancing your offline and online catalogs and make sure they complement each other.

How does E-commerce Product Catalog Management Work

The primary function of catalog management is to organize and streamline high-quality and consistent product details spread across various channels. It is a vital component for any brand that wants to build a robust online presence and wants to help its customers find what they are looking for. Every customer must feel comfortable making a purchase based on the brand’s information.

A product information management system can be implemented to help you organize your product data and compile it under one centralized location. This will allow you to upload product information quickly to all your sales channels. You must always keep your customers in mind and organize your catalog based on the targeted audience rather than repeating the same information across different channels.

E-commerce Product Catalog Management: Challenges and Solutions

Businesses face these main challenges when managing the product catalog online when it comes to product catalog management.

• Usability-all the internal product data must be translated into customer-facing information. Also, you would want to make sure that the categorization and the product display would fit the customers’ expectations.
• The involvement of the stakeholders can make managing and updating the catalog system complex and more time-consuming.
• You must choose a proper catalog management tool, and for this, you must have a deep understanding of the functions and the business situation. It can be more challenging for several multinational companies to find a proper solution if the internal operation systems like marketing or e-commerce systems are deferred across the world.
• Business and catalog growth or interrelated, your current catalog structure would require expansion. If there is inconsistency or lack of organization in the current catalog system, it can lead to challenges when you decide to expand your catalog.

To overcome these challenges, you are some of the ways that can be implemented to manage your e-commerce product catalog.

• You must build trust by providing comprehensive product information and using high-quality visuals.
• You tag and categorize your digital products and keep them consistent.
• Figure out a way to map your catalog management process so that you can understand what parts are attached by stakeholders and who would be affected by the catalog changes
• Try up-selling and cross-selling related or alternative products.
• Manage your e-commerce product catalog database. For doing that, make sure that you have a single source of truth and try specifying the rules and authorization flows for database modification.
• Select a trustworthy catalog management tool that will help you keep your functions running smoothly
• Personalize your B2B e-commerce product catalog if required
• Balance the online and offline catalogs

E-commerce Product Catalog Management: Tips to Upgrade

If you want to improve your catalog management and spend less time on other logistics-related tasks, these are some of the ways that can be implemented to make it work.

• Personalize your product catalogs. Several products require different details information, and by personalizing, you will be able to display the correct information even for different audiences. 
• A warehouse management system can be implemented. It will help you aggregate all the data and provide supply chain visibility. It is crucial, mainly when you start expanding into multiple fulfillment centers. It will allow you to upload photos and descriptions with more accuracy, track inventory levels, view inventory performance, etc.
• Audit your inventory regularly. Conducting regular audits will ensure that your products are displayed correctly and matches the actual inventory in stock. If a specific product is out of stock, you should update the product page to avoid backorders. The audit will also help you find inefficiency like talking too much or too low. 

Bottom Line

Proper product catalog management is a starting point, and as a business owner, you must keep researching and gathering information as much as possible regarding your customers and their reviews. You can also improve on the design and message so that your customers can have a great experience while shopping online.