“Product catalog data” sounds like a mixed metaphor. If you aren’t working for a manufacturer or brand with hundreds or thousands of SKUs, product catalog management seems like some far-out idea that’s either jargon or a typo.

“Catalog,” of course, is something we all get. Grandma and Grandpa remember the Sears catalog; Mom and Dad remember the JC Penny booklets you could pick up at the mall.

“Product data,” though? What is that? What does it mean to “manage” it?

Perhaps no one prints paper catalogs anymore, but product catalog data is more influential today than ever. Product catalogs are now online—e-commerce sales account for one-sixth of sales worldwide, and the trend is on the rise.

While most consumers bounce from product page to page without much thought, the work that goes into managing the product data on those listings is enormous. When it's done poorly, product listings get buried. Brands need product data—and to manage it well—to get seen, and then to communicate every possible detail of their products to compel that final buy.

That reason alone makes product catalog management fundamental to digital commerce. That’s not all, though. Let's take a look at what constitutes product data and what its management does for brand visibility and operations today.

What is product catalog data?

Product data for products sold online includes everything from SKU numbers and product specifications to the 3D photos and augmented reality shopping experiences associated with product listings.

At a high level, catalog data can be broken down into two kinds of product information:

Essential product data
Enriched product data

What is product catalog management?

Managing product data means more than just pooling it together in a spreadsheet. Product catalog management in the 2020s refers to a strategic process of managing product data to ensure:

The quality of online product listings
The completeness of online product listings
The accuracy of online product listings
The relevance of online product listings

Product catalog management means pooling, organizing, standardizing, optimizing, and distributing product data on multiple channels. Data is exported for distribution on every place a brand advertises or sells, which is a bit of a to-do. After all, the product data requirements are different for a platform like Amazon than they are for a Shopify storefront. Each channel has unique requirements for the product data uploaded there.

Product data management is one of the critical yet unspoken building blocks of solidifying a brand presence online. It isn't sexy to talk about, and it's definitely a headache to work on. That's all changing, however, as the right tools are introduced to the market.

Why is product catalog management such a headache?

It sounds simple enough to pool catalog data, doesn’t it? Just update an Excel spreadsheet every time you add new products.

Unfortunately, that's far from how data management really works.

Most brands are dealing with hundreds or even thousands of product SKUs. Each marketing and sales channel has its own spin on product data requirements, too.

Furthermore, if you have a spreadsheet with product colors, materials, weight, and other data points, ask yourself:

"Is it 100% accurate right now? Or have too many chefs spoil the pot?"

"When was the last time your data spreadsheet was audited?"

"How do you store the Amazon-friendly bullet points in that sheet?"

*"How do you keep that data friendly for a quick upload to Shopify?"

"How do you store your product photos and videos and link them to the related product in that spreadsheet?"

"How do you sort products in your sheet based on assembly or parts?"

"How do you easily edit specific SKUs for customer- or channel-specific pricing?"

These questions are rhetorical. What a relief, right? But then the real answer sinks in: you probably don't have an answer to many, or any, of these critical points. That's because these are the very real challenges of managing product data. No spreadsheet can cut it. In the 2020s, this has become even truer as e-commerce competition has heated up.

Today, brands need to launch to new e-commerce channels "yesterday." It takes them months, however, to optimize and fit their product data to the requirements of a new platform.

Product data is nothing today without enriched product photos and videos, either. That kind of data is difficult (or impossible) to manage with spreadsheets.

To top it off, the more departments get involved (from product development to sales to marketing to customer service), the more difficult it is to act as stewards of product data.

What's at stake?

Poorly managed product data leads to inaccurate product listings. Those inaccurate product listings lead to poor product ratings and a rise in charge-backs, if your product even gets seen.

SEO and product-driven content are also essential to get a foothold in today's market, and neither can take flight without accurate, complete, and dynamic product data.

Without product catalog management, a brand can suffer and fail in creating an image of consumer advocacy. In an age where, for the first time ever, consumers prefer direct-to-consumer (DTC) interactions with brands over big-box retail, a brand's online presence will shrivel and die if consumers experience inaccurate or incomplete product data.

How to use product data successfully across multiple channels

Let's say you sell on Amazon, advertise on Facebook, and both sell and advertise on Instagram. You're even also considering your own e-commerce storefront.

It will be difficult to keep up with all those platforms and their product data requirements. While you do have to optimize product data for each channel, you also have to ensure a certain kind of consistency across channels to garner that brand personality that customers connect with.

That might be a tall order, but these challenges are easily overcome with the right tools. Instead of spreadsheets, manufacturers and brands use product information management (PIM) software to effortlessly pool and organize their product data. PIM asset management with a next-gen PIM like the Amber Engine PIM also has built-in data quality scoring. That way, you can instantly pick out what data needs attention first.

It’s next-gen PIM asset management that brands use to win at the next generation of e-commerce.

The end game: build more trust with customers

Sometimes, it's helpful to remember why we're doing any of this at all.

Providing a strategic user experience (UX) across channels (even those whose UX you don't own, like Amazon) is the best way to build trust with consumers. At a fundamental level, this means pointing them to the information they want and the information they need but didn’t know to look for.

Accurate and complete product information is inherently more searchable and also makes it easier to side-by-side compare products. Your product data is the smallest building block of this optimal UX.

Keep reading to learn more about what poorly managed product data does to a user's buying experience.

The icing on the cake: improved operations

Optimized product data is central in UX, impacts online visibility, and drives sales. It also powers your backend operations in a big way.

The more complex product data has become, the more departments have a hand in it. Creatives are working on product videos and virtual experiences. Product development teams are coming up with new products faster than ever. Marketing teams are positioning products inside a bigger SEO strategy. Customer services teams are diving deep into SKU specifications to help clients.

The thing is, not everyone can have their own version of the product catalog database. This kind of multi-version spreadsheet management is how catalog data is quickly rendered inaccurate, inconsistent, and out of date.

Storing catalog product data in a cloud-based app is what today's PIM asset management is all about. The next-gen PIM takes the “central repository” idea a step further with user-by-user, product-by-product, class-by-class, and type-by-type permissions of who can see what.

Brands can finally be real stewards of their product data.

Product catalog management done right can also make financial and operational reporting a cinch. Can you imagine instantly filtering your product catalog based on any criteria? Can you imagine saving search results as either a static list (where those results stay "frozen" and accessible) or as a dynamic list (where any new SKUs that fit the criteria automatically filter into the search results)? Sounds pretty handy, doesn’t it?

These types of operational tools do more than create efficiencies; they create new opportunities to do business in ways that better fit the times and needs of brands selling in multichannel digital commerce.

The first step: a standardized product catalog management process

Whatever system you decide to use, expanding your brand to e-commerce and other channels will be challenging at best without a tool to streamline product data management. The total time and effort spent manually organizing products for different sales channels and audiences is too great a cost to make manual product catalog management self-sustaining anymore.

Not sure if you have the time to research PIM asset management? Learn what time you can win back with these key ways PIM asset management will save you time.

Start by defining all the product data you have. Know where everything is stored. Then, pool it together and begin managing it as today’s e-commerce requires.

It sounds intimidating, and perhaps it is. The idea of getting left behind, however, is far worse. The next-gen PIM was designed for the next generation of e-commerce. Take a look behind the curtain and see what the future of your brand could look like.

What Is Product Catalog Management (and Why Do You Need It)?