What Is A Product Catalogue?
A product catalogue is a document, book or magazine that mentions all details and specifications about a product or a range of products. Business catalogues are created to showcase products, provide comprehensive information to potential buyers and give customers the necessary data to make informed choices.
In the context of ecommerce, an online version of a catalogue can be accessed by customers on a website, a mobile app or any other digital platform.
What Are Some of The Key Advantages Of Maintaining A Product Catalogue?
- Customers are spoilt with choices online. A well-designed catalogue can help streamline the buyers’ purchase journey and ease their decision-making.
- Catalogues can help brands generate leads and sales by providing customers with a convenient way to browse and shop for products.
- It offers an overview of product information, aiding in organising and introducing new offerings.
- It improves the sales process by equipping a D2C brand with comprehensive product data for effective conversations and improved conversions.
- It provides marketers with product details for creating appealing content and advertisements.
- For brands with an offline presence, it allows external partners and on-the-field marketers to access accurate product details before engaging with customers.
What Goes Into A Product Catalogue?
- A visual representation of products, their specifications and price.
- A brief overview highlighting key descriptors of products.
- List of distinctive qualities or functionalities of products.
- Information about materials used.
- Guidelines for maintaining and preserving products.
- Mentions of relevant product certification.
- Shipping details such as delivery cost and estimated time of delivery.
- Customer reviews or testimonials.
How To Manage A Product Catalogue?
Catalogue management means organising and overseeing a collection of products or services. This includes tasks like creating product descriptions, setting prices/discounts and managing inventory. Brands can use catalogue management tools to help in organising, storing, retrieving, and optimising catalogues by product details, pricing, suppliers, and SKUs.
Effective catalogue management improves sales and CX. It also ensures accurate and up-to-date pricing, thereby streamlining the ordering process.
Why Is Effective Catalogue Management Important?
- It provides control over product information by ensuring accurate data flow across the entire retail or ecommerce chain.
- It creates uniformity in catalogues from various suppliers and distributors. It also helps in meeting specific requirements of diverse sales channels and marketplaces.
- It helps in organising data effectively.
- It showcases products and services for seamless user experiences. This helps boost sales as customers are able to easily access product information.
- It enables customers to quickly discover products.
What Are The Challenges Of Product Catalogue Management?
- Brands have to constantly update their product listings, including product details, prices, and descriptions.
- Brands selling across multiple platforms have to manage multiple catalogues.
- Different channel requirements complicate updates. Additionally, all the listings have to be accurate.
- Managing complicated details means finding the right balance between being thorough and easy to understand so that simple product listings help people decide what to buy
- Maintaining good data quality is important but can be challenging. Inaccurate product listings make customers unhappy and if the information doesn’t match the product, it damages the brand’s reputation.
