8 Significant eCommerce Catalog Management Obstacles to Overcome

Efficient catalog management is critical to the success of your eCommerce strategies, no matter how small or large your company is or what tools and technologies you use to manage your product data. Whether you use Amaze PXM or any other software to strengthen your presence in the eCommerce market, you cannot grow your business without mastering product catalog management.

The fundamental step in organizing a catalog is to build a hierarchical category structure (aka taxonomy). Then it comes down to classifying and housing products in proper categories. Defining product attributes is the second step which is vital to describe the products thoroughly. Thirdly, it requires defining schema. The next step is to set up data governance rules which ensure data accuracy and completeness.

But the hurdles along the way in doing all that is enormous. That is where you might need a helping hand to support your eCommerce strategy. Here are 8 ways to overcome obstacles associated with eCommerce catalog management.

1. Regular updates

Online retailers have thousands of SKUs on hand. With that, updating the details of every product on multiple channels becomes quite formidable. Moreover, regular updates on prices, sizes, colors, and availability make matters worse. So, it is imperative to update product information regularly. It will help you avoid passing wrong information to your customers. When talking about solutions, Amaze Product Experience Management (PXM) is a way to do that from a centralized location. The software facilitates creating, maintaining, and managing product catalogs.

2. Product page optimization

If your products do not appear on top of the search engine result page (SERPs) when searched for with relevant keywords by users, the product page needs to be optimized and made search engine friendly. The product page requires optimized content and proper metadata to get listed in SERPs. Not to worry, the Amaze PIM software can help you do this.

3. Data integrity and completeness

While managing an eCommerce catalog, organizations may face difficulties in achieving data integrity and completeness. The information on the catalog must be complete, consistent, and up-to-date if you want to win customers’ trust. It could include visuals, videos, use cases, and other digital assets. When you update your inventory, the changes should reflect in the catalog as well. And for this to happen, you may require Amaze PXM, which incorporates Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) capabilities to help you improve your data quality and consistency.

4. Editing product images

The visual presentation of the product is a critical factor for higher conversions. Editing product images is essential to make your product page look appealing. It takes lots of time and effort to enhance the visual experience of the product. One easy way to do this quickly and efficiently is to deploy Amaze digital asset management software. Amaze PXM’s DAM provides users with powerful editing capabilities and a unified access point to view, edit, manage and present digital assets.

5. Product catalog listing

It is vital to decide the order in which products appear in the catalog. Intuitive product indexing can be the key to the success of your online store. Proper catalog listing can help your customer find the products they are looking for and will improve your sales.

6. Organizing product data

Duplicate content on two similar products can affect your search engine ranking negatively. So, the need of the hour is to ensure that all the product pages should have unique, relevant, and engaging content. It will help your online store find more customers.

7. Integrate social media platforms

Integrating social media platforms may help you expand your customer outreach and grow your sales prospects. But, it might take a lot of time to synchronize your social media inventory and other data with your online store. Again, you may need specialized and dedicated software like Amaze Product Experience Management (PXM) to do that easily in the minimum possible time. Amaze PXM provides easy and fast integration with 100s of eCommerce platforms and distribution channels.

8. Defining processes and rules to manage your catalog better

Since multiple stakeholders have an active role in product catalogs, it is imperative to map processes and stakeholders for clarity. It will bring ease to identifying internal and external stakeholders at crunch moments. It also improves the visibility of which stakeholder impacts which part of the process and whom these changes impact.