What is catalog management?
Catalog management is the organized way that online stores, suppliers, and stores keep track of their product libraries. It involves writing product descriptions, setting prices, sorting things into groups, and keeping track of stock across all sales channels.
Catalog management tools let you save, find, change, and share details about your online and offline goods. You can also organize, sort, and select them based on:
- Type of product
- Name of the item
- Keywords or a description
- The Ranks
- Things like name, size, and color
- Prices
- Provider
- SKU
- A vast number of other factors
A catalog management system can help you improve the customer experience, speed up order processing and delivery, and keep an eye on your products and services by integrating inventory management, supporting multiple languages and currencies, performing quality control and compliance checks, and making the system work better on mobile devices and the web.
Synonyms
- Product catalog management (PCM)
- Catalog management software
Problems with keeping track of product catalogs
It’s sometimes as easy to manage a product list as it is to herd cats. It’s possible, but it’s hard. Even when businesses have a single location to keep track of all their digital assets, they still face the five issues below:
Keeping lists of products up to date
If you only have a few items, keeping them up-to-date is easy. It’s hard to keep your website’s product details correct if you have hundreds or thousands of SKUs. Plus, it’s even more complicated if you have a store.
You might have various lines of products, sales, and price plans. Some stores have different prices online than in-store, or they have special online deals for account users. This adds another level of complexity.
Keeping things the same across various sales channels
Besides your online shop, you could also sell some or all of your goods through
- Locations with real walls
- A market run by a third party, like Amazon or Etsy
- A store like Target or Walmart
- Shop on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok
- Affiliates (blogs and people with a lot of followers)
There will be different listing standards and steps for each of these. In other words, your digital catalog comprises several separate web catalogs. It’s harder to standardize and keep each page up-to-date when there isn’t any uniformity.
Even worse, you have no control over some of these sites, which is a big problem. But if you can’t promise they will have the same prices, customers will feel ripped off when they see your goods for less on other online stores, and you’ll lose money if the price differences favor them.
Talking to channel sales partners, delivery centers, and stores is part of managing a catalog. That can’t be done without a central collection of products.
Adding more products to the store
You need to list new items as soon as you get them. However, many companies also want to grow their product lines by:
- Details about the product (sizes, colors)
- Putting things together
- Packing up
- Products with private labels
If you don’t have the right tools, this kind of digital store growth can be a real pain. Each set of products might have multiple price points, and you’ll have to deal with the name becoming less clear. If the name of your private label product is too close to a protected name, you might even have trouble with trademarks.
Taking care of details for goods that can be customized a lot
Managing your store is ten times harder if your products can be set up differently. It gets harder to place an order when there are a lot of rules and choices for a product.
Having your digital catalog handle all these configurations without affecting the user experience would be best. These configurations must be precise for your buyers, allowing them to see how their choices might affect the end product.
People are less likely to buy when something makes it hard for them. Also, if the product they buy can’t be made, you’ll need to let them know when your fulfillment team figures it out, which could take days. Customers will be miserable if you make too many mistakes like this.
Also, if you’re a B2B maker, this is something that your sales team needs to know about. When working with buyers, they need to know how each configuration choice will change prices and shipping times. It’s harder for your sales reps to make accurate sales without a product catalog management solution that lets them see this and keeps accurate product information.
Making sure the quality of the data and a uniform experience
If your goods don’t work with these things, you can’t sell them:
- Your web site
- Your system for managing orders
- CRM stands for customer relationship management.
- Your tools for selling
- Places to buy things in stores
You don’t want a customer to say or read in a review that your ads aren’t consistent. But this will happen if your website and marketplace listings for the same goods don’t match up in pictures, details, or prices or are not in sync with your partners.
Users have different experiences when the information isn’t consistent, which means fewer conversions and less money from sales.
How Product Catalog Management Has Changed Over Time
What Was There Before?
Before the internet, companies made, shared, and updated their product listings by hand. They put together accurate catalogs that had to be updated and printed again every time something changed. This meant that changes could not be made very often.
Customers were often given out-of-date information because the process took a lot of work. The customer wouldn’t know there wasn’t any stock until they went to a store or tried to make an order. When I think back on it, it was a huge pain.
That started to change in the 1980s with the rise of shopping. As more people shop online, companies have started making digital stores that customers can look through and buy things from. They had to put each product and its details by hand into spreadsheets and (now obsolete) databases, and then they had to code the website themselves.
Where We Are Now
Software now does everything, from listing products and dividing them into groups based on type to processing orders and keeping track of stock.
- A site like Shopify is what you’ll use to list your goods.
- When someone purchases something, a secure payment provider will automatically transfer their payment to your bank account.
- Your ERP system will keep you from selling more than you have. It shares information with your website interface both ways.
- The change is seen right away by your fulfillment team so they can get to work.
You can sell things on your website, in markets, social media, or in actual life stores. It does not matter. The software takes care of everything in a unified way.
And the stores of today go even further. If your website has a customer data platform (CDP), it can instantly determine what kinds of products and categories a visitor is interested in. It can suggest similar goods, start marketing actions, and make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for without any help from a person.
Catalog management will change along with the digital world. As salespeople get better at developing new ideas and making the customer experience more unique, companies will need more innovative ways to handle their catalogs to keep up.
Pros of software for managing product catalogs
The reasons why companies need to use software to handle their product catalogs are touched on above. Here is a short list of its most important benefits:
- More power over price and product information
- Better ways to talk to delivery centers and sales partners
- Attributes, bundles, kitting, and private label offers make adding more products to catalogs easier.
- Made it easier for customers (self-service online) and sellers (in CPQ) to set up products.
- Product information that is the same on all of your outlets
- It fits with retail sales systems, online stores, OMS, CRM, sales tools, and online stores
- Automating tasks (like making websites and taking care of shopping)
- Managing stock in real-time and stopping overselling
- Being able to sell through various channels without getting lost or being inconsistent
- Higher rates of customer happiness, loyalty, and word-of-mouth
Best Practices for Catalog Management
Put all of your product data in one place
Stop changing product information by hand. This is the first thing you should do to keep your product list management current.
If you have a big store with many different items, sell through many channels, and use many sales tools (like e-commerce, CPQ, and social media management), you should get a product information management (PIM) system.
System interaction is the most important thing to look for when looking for PIM software. Does it work well with the other tools you have? Or do you need to assemble a lot of stuff for it to work?
Put your products into groups and tags.
Each item in your store should have a tag and a category that describes it. This could be as easy as putting a shirt in the “apparel,” “men,” or “summer collection” category. For goods that can be customized a lot, you’ll also need to add separate rules for each one.
Tags can usually be added when adding a new object to most product catalog management systems. Usually, this part of the page is under “product information” or “product details.” Don’t be afraid to use many tags, but make sure they are helpful.
Setting up a hierarchical structure for your goods is usually part of categorizing them. This generally starts with a more general term, like “electronics,” and then gets more specific, like “televisions,” “smart TVs,” and so on.
After that, use your PIM system like you would a search engine. Make search engine-friendly explanations full of keywords your internal team can quickly find and use.
Clear descriptions of the goods
The details about your goods should be easy to understand. This includes all the information that is important for that product.
- Size and shape
- Items needed
- How it works
- Different sizes
- Guarantees
- Data on packaging
- Details on the tech
To help people understand what they’re getting, use pictures, diagrams, videos, and other visual materials.
When writing descriptions, you should also think about the buyer’s trip. Don’t use technical or business jargon they won’t understand (or want to read). Use simple keywords that make it easy for customers and team members to find your goods and focus on highlighting the benefits of each one.
Upsells, cross-sells, and add-ons for maps.
Cross-selling and upselling will help your usual order value go up. Everyone knows this.
On average, 70% to 95% of a company’s sales income comes from upsells. They can bring in 10% to 30% more money for those who don’t.
You can set up your store management system to do the following:
- Deals on packages of products
- Suggestions for items that go well with each other and better alternatives
- Suggestions for other items that customers might like
- Bundles that you want to draw attention to in your shop or on social media
Your product catalog software can make sales and cross-sell suggestions using rules. It can also set the prices correctly if you want to run a sale or give a deal for buying several items at once.
Integrations for managing product catalogs
Set up price quote (CPQ)
CPQ software helps your sales team assemble packs and different ways to use your products. If you add it to your website, you can let your customers build their goods or packages with an online product configurator. Once the configuration is done, it makes a professional quote or proposal for your company.
Unless you connect this system to your product list, it won’t be able to tell if a customer can choose the options they want. That way, your sales staff won’t be able to give people the correct prices or information about your products, and your website won’t show the most up-to-date stock.
Planning for business resources (ERP)
ERP systems handle your business, from sales and goods to HR and finances.
When you connect your product catalog to an ERP system, you can see real-time information about your stock in your outlets, such as your online store, physical stores, warehouses, and more.
Also, whenever a customer buys something, whether it’s in-store or on your e-commerce site, it instantly updates your inventory numbers and sends that information to your accounting system.
System for managing a warehouse
If you’re a store or a third-party logistics (3PL), you probably use a warehouse management system to make your warehouse work more efficiently. This system is also in charge of keeping track of inventory levels and making sure that goods come in and go out quickly.
When you connect your product catalog to your WMS program, you can always see how much stock you have. If you have correct stock information, you can avoid running out of stock and make your supply chain work better based on demand.
Taking care of orders
Order management software helps your order fulfillment team handle online customer sales. It ensures they have the information they need to get goods ready on time and ship them. Order management software that works with your product catalog speeds up the delivery process even more.
When an order comes in, the system checks to see if the items are in stock and tells the warehouse staff to pick up and pack the items. Also, once a shipment is made, the system lets your buyers know how to track it.
POS for shops
Stores keep some of their goods in stock. Usually, they also list this product online so they don’t get too much. People can still order something that’s sold out at the central warehouse and have it shipped straight from the store.
These items can’t be sold if your catalog management software isn’t linked to your store point-of-sale (POS) system. This is because they aren’t connected to the rest of your inventory. Your website doesn’t have a way to show that they are available.
Billing and sending bills
When a customer pays for a product and the product is delivered, billing integration ensures that the product is recorded in your inventory system. In the same way, when someone sends something back, the inventory is changed to show that.
For both of you, this means that you have a correct count of what’s in stock and that your accounting team has correct records for taxes and financial accounts. This process also tells you which people owe you money, how much, and why.
Why this is important to know:
- Which people you can count on the most?
- What items do well in stores?
- How much money a product or service makes
By linking your billing software to your catalog management software, you can see which goods make you the most money and decide what prices and deals to offer them.
