How can you ensure that your products are available online, trusted by your online store visitors, and convert well? It often comes down to effective e-commerce product catalog management.
So what are the advantages of good e-commerce catalog management? What are the challenges in managing your online product catalog? And what is the best approach for catalog management in e-commerce? In this blog, we share everything you need to understand about e-commerce product catalog management and 8 helpful tips you can follow.
8 Best Practices for E-Commerce Catalog Management
- Use product information to build brand trust
- Tag and organize your digital product catalog
- Mapping your catalog management process
- Recommend related products and others
- Handle your e-commerce product catalog database
- Choose a catalog management tool
- Customize your B2B e-commerce product catalog
- Organize your offline and online catalog
Why is e-commerce catalog management important?
Nowadays, B2C and B2B customers are familiar with searching for product information and purchasing online. Therefore, your business should have a well-managed online product catalog to address customer behavior, ensure your products are found and accessible online, and stay competitive. A clear and comprehensive eCommerce catalog will also help you be seen as a leader in your industry and build trust between you and your online store visitors.
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Use product information to build brand trust
When managing your digital product catalog, your first goal should be to make sure that your (potential) customers feel comfortable shopping on your e-commerce site. You want visitors to your online store to trust your business, so they will order from you. To achieve this goal, you must provide complete and accurate information in your product catalog. Your customers can begin to trust your business only when the information they use to evaluate your brand and products is complete and accurate.
You can start from the three areas below to get good product content:
- Add detailed information to your product catalog.
- Ensure all your data is exceptional.
- Showcase your products with high-quality images.
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Tag and organize your digital product catalog
Help your customers easily browse your digital product catalog by giving them the ability to filter, edit and organize product information in your online store. You can do this by naming and organizing all your products in order. But make sure you do it from your customer’s perspective.
In other words, think about how they search for information and how they want to search your website. For example, if you know that your customers often look for product information based on materials, make sure that you do not limit your product functionality to size and color only.
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Mapping your catalog management process
As mentioned earlier, the involvement of many stakeholders makes e-commerce catalog management a complex process. One way to overcome this challenge is to start by defining your catalog management system. Then you can find out where your internal and external stakeholders are during this process.
This classification system can give you a clear understanding:
- What aspects of the catalog management process affect stakeholders
- Who changes in your catalog is affected
- When are they affected during the process
When your e-commerce product catalog needs updating, a segmentation system allows you to quickly find the right product(s) to reach.
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Recommend related products and others
Adding related products to your e-commerce catalog is an easy way to increase the value of your order.
Think about your own online shopping experience. If you’re looking for a new camera, many online stores will also recommend the best batteries, memory cards, and cases to go with it. How many times have you added these items to your cart? You usually do – because you want them, it’s very useful not to want them.
You can also suggest other products to entice your buyer to buy a better camera or encourage them to continue browsing if they haven’t found the product they’re looking for.
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Handle your e-commerce product catalog database
Since e-commerce catalog management is a form of information management, database maintenance is an inescapable part of catalog optimization. The following tips can help you keep your product catalog database clean:
- Manage a single source of truth for your product catalog.
- Define roles and responsibilities for changing the database.
- Explore the possibilities of expanding your database.
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Choose a catalog management tool
Many tools on the market can help you manage your e-commerce product catalog. Depending on your business needs, your e-commerce product catalog can be managed by:
When choosing a product catalog management tool, you need to consider your current technology stack, the size of your business, the complexity of your product catalog, the availability of your work resources, and if you plan to expand into an online store. the future.
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Customize your B2B e-commerce product catalog
If you’re doing B2B business, you’re likely to face another level of confusion: the price of your product may vary from one customer to another or in every situation. This is why catalog design can be so important for your B2B online store. Therefore, pay close attention to the fact that your online store can handle the displayed price.
Additionally, if you choose to offer different content to different customer segments, check to see if your e-commerce solution supports a bespoke catalog. With customized catalog options, the content provided to your customers will be more relevant to them.
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Organize your offline and online catalog
If you are using an offline product catalog in addition to your online catalog, you need to think about how to make both catalogs complete. For example, an offline catalog can serve as an easy-to-read product display for broader understanding and quick decision-making; while online catalogs can serve as a comprehensive and up-to-date product information center for in-depth research and product comparison.
Conclusion:
E-commerce product catalog management is important for all online businesses, but it can be overwhelming at times due to the many challenges that can arise due to seller, team, and customer factors. wanted. Using a product catalog is an effective way to stay ahead of the competition while displaying accurate information about your products. It is a good way to attract more customers to your online store because you will have a better understanding of the seller and the customer’s needs. By applying the above 8 best practices for managing an eCommerce product catalog, you can run a successful eCommerce business while providing your customers with the important information they are looking for.
