If there’s one thing that all eCommerce sites frustrate their customers with, it’s poor product descriptions and inaccurate information. Why do eCommerce sites struggle to offer the right information to the customers? The answer lies in inefficient catalog management. Catalog management, in simple terms, is the centralized management of all the items being sold on the site.

The catalog maintains a centralized repository of all the SKUs with accurate descriptions and information and that is shared with all the stakeholders in the value chain such as merchants, suppliers, and customers. In this article, we will go over some challenges in the world of eCommerce product catalog management and give tips on how to solve them.

Multiple Vendors

Multiple vendors mean multiple interfaces, multiple systems, and inconsistency. It’s a nightmare. If you have vendors selling through your eCommerce store, you’re going to have a hard time managing their product catalogs.

If you have multiple vendors selling through your eCommerce store, their product catalogs will likely be different from one another. For example, one vendor might sell their products in pounds while another sells theirs in kilograms. The same goes for shipping costs — one vendor might charge £10 for shipping while another charges $15 for shipping.

It can be incredibly difficult to keep track of all these differences and ensure they’re consistent across all product listings on your site. This is especially true if you’re running an international business with buyers worldwide who are shopping on your site in different currencies and languages!

Complex Data Structures

The data structures and processes that underpin an eCommerce platform can be complex, especially if you are running multiple channels across different geographies and currencies. Moreover, the data that drives your products can be distributed across various systems and locations, making it very difficult to maintain a single view of the customer.

To make matters worse, new product categories and attributes can be added at any time. These additions may not always be reflected in all systems or channels, resulting in inconsistencies that impact the quality of your customer experience.

Multiple Channels

With so many different channels available these days, it has become very difficult for retailers to manage everything manually. There are hundreds of marketplaces out there where you can sell your products, but it is almost impossible for retailers to maintain separate catalogs for each one of them. This leads to incorrect pricing, incorrect information, and even duplicate listings.

On the other hand, you may have a single platform that manages your product catalogs across all channels or different platforms for each channel. Either way, it’s imperative to keep track of what’s happening across all these platforms so that you can make changes where necessary.

Increasing costs

The main challenge in eCommerce product catalog management is the cost-effective management of the product database. Companies need to keep track of all the available products in their inventory and ensure that they are accurately represented in their online store or print catalogs.

Automated systems come with many features and functionalities, which means you don’t need to hire additional staff to manage your product catalog, as one person can do it. This will save you money on employee wages and free up time for other activities such as marketing or customer service.

Integration of catalogs with ERP And POS Systems

The data from your ERP and POS systems can be used to create a clearer picture of your customer’s shopping behavior, which can help you identify new opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. A lot of companies have their own in-house enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and point-of-sale (POS) systems that they use to manage their inventory and sales data.

Unfortunately, these systems don’t always play nicely together, especially when it comes to product information management (PIM). This can make it difficult for companies to integrate their eCommerce product catalogs with their ERP and POS platforms so that they can share this information across different departments within their organization.

Personalized Product Recommendations

It’s easy for new products to get lost in the shuffle, especially if they aren’t getting any attention from customers or employees. If you don’t have processes to ensure that all products are being updated regularly, this can become a problem quickly.

Product recommendations are a critical part of the product catalog management process. However, personalized recommendations can be challenging due to the vast number of products and the many factors involved in determining which products should be recommended to customers based on their past purchases, browsing history, and other factors.

The challenge is further complicated because each recommendation service uses its own algorithms and rules for generating recommendations, so each service must be integrated separately into your eCommerce site or managed manually by your team.

Catalog size

The challenge of keeping the product catalog up-to-date is one that most retailers are familiar with. It’s easy to imagine how a massive database with thousands of products could become difficult to manage, especially when adding new products or updating existing ones. What’s more, if you’re using an outdated legacy system, this can only make matters worse.

With the right software, all these tasks can be done automatically by sending push notifications directly from the platform itself. In addition, if you want to be able to update images on-the-fly without having any coding skills at all, then this feature may come in handy as well!

Inconsistent Categorization & Taxonomy

If your eCommerce store has a large catalog, it can be difficult for buyers to find exactly what they’re looking for. This is especially true if your categories aren’t properly organized or if you don’t have an effective taxonomy in place. An inconsistent taxonomy can lead buyers down different paths and cause them to lose interest quickly.

For example, there can be multiple variations of the same product or version. This can confuse users who want to shop by specific features or specifications. An incorrect or incomplete taxonomy can also impact how your products are ranked on search engines like Google, which means you won’t get as much traffic from shoppers looking for certain products.

Conclusion:

For effective eCommerce product catalog management, it is important to be aware of all of the challenges and work with a company with previous experience and expertise in this domain. Such experts can help you define the right strategy for your product catalog management, help you select the right technology, and implement the same based on your unique business needs. Get in touch with us to know more about eCommerce Solutions.