BigCommerce Multi-Storefront & Catsy PIM

Managing Diverse Catalogs with Ease

Introduction: Why ROI Matters for BigCommerce Merchants

Running multiple storefronts within BigCommerce is a strategic move that many brands choose as they scale. Whether you’re targeting different regions or testing sub-brands, a multi-storefront setup will let you tailor your messaging, pricing, and product assortments – all while keeping your operations under one roof!

But that flexibility introduces a thorny problem: product data complexity. Without a solid data strategy, multiple storefronts can become a tangle of duplicated entries, inconsistent content, and slow operations.

But that flexibility often presents a thorny problem: product data complexity. If you don’t have a solid data strategy, your multiple storefronts can become a tangle of duplicated entries, incorrect content, and lagging operations.

The Multi-Storefront Opportunity—and Its Hidden Costs

BigCommerce’s multi-storefront feature is powerful! It allows you to run distinct storefronts from a single BigCommerce account. For instance, you can manage different brands, different regions, or even different customer segments from one centralized place.

A setup like this reduces infrastructure overhead and allows your teams to reuse your backend logic across unique storefront experiences. But that architecture hides a fact: every storefront needs accurate and localized data.

Here are a few common scenarios where merchants choose multiple storefronts:

If the goal is regional expansion which requires localized pricing, language, and compliance information.
You desire distinct brand experiences; for instance, you want a premium line and also an outlet line, each requiring different merchandising and content.
You want separate business-to-business and business-to-consumer storefronts with special pricing, catalogs, and purchasing workflows.
Your aim is country- or market-specific assortments, meaning products are available in one country but not another.

Each of these scenarios will multiply the product data surface area. A single product record may require different descriptions, prices, or measurements across each storefront, taking cultural norms into account, too.

When you multiply that by hundreds or thousands of SKUs, your manual processes break down quickly.

Common Product Data Challenges in Multi-Storefront Environments

Duplicate and Divergent Product Records

Often, teams will create separate product records for each storefront. This “feels” easier than mapping variance rules. The outcome of this, though, is duplicated effort and divergent product information. Obviously, this becomes an administrative nightmare.

Attribute and Taxonomy Inconsistencies

Storefront A might use “color: red” to describe a product while Storefront B uses “shade: crimson.” Small differences like these can make filtering and analytics unreliable. Mismatches in taxonomy will also degrade search and discovery across each of your stores.

Digital Asset Sprawl

Your assets like videos and downloads often live in different places. Some may be in local machines, some in marketing drives, some in shared folders. This means that the wrong image can be published on the wrong storefront, or that your teams may update your products with outdated information. This, simply put, harms your brand experience.

Localization and Compliance Overhead

When you sell to different countries or regions, you add localization needs. Translations, varying units, regulatory certificates, and locale-specific assets are examples. Maintaining these variations without automation will cost you money and make room for error.

Fragmented Workflows and Approvals

You have multiple teams that need to collaborate within your organization. For instance, your product, marketing, localization, and legal teams will need to make your products storefront-ready. But without a central hub and clear permissions, their workflows stall and their mistakes slip into your live shops.

Slow Time-to-Market

Each new collection or seasonal update you launch requires repeating the same steps for each storefront. Centralizing your processes to avoid delays and to boost your competitive advantage.

Why a Purpose-Built PIM Matters for Multi-Storefront Success

A Product Information System (PIM) serves as the single source of truth for each of your products. Your attributes, variants, and digital assets all live in one centralized location. But for BigCommerce merchants with multiple storefronts, not just any PIM will do.

Find a solution that supports:

Storefront-level variations without duplicating core product records.
Integrated Digital Asset Management (DAM) so that images and video will live next to product data.
Flexible syndication rules to map your content to the right storefront using the right format.
Localization workflows and version control for your translated content.
Role-based permissions and approval workflows for cross-team collaboration.

Catsy PIM was purpose-built with e-commerce scale in mind. It combines PIM and DAM capabilities and includes robust syndication and governance features. Our platform was built to match the needs of BigCommerce multi-storefront merchants.

How Catsy PIM Handles Multi-Storefront Complexity (Step-by-Step)

Below, we’ve outlined a practical roadmap that you can follow to implement Catsy into your own multi-storefront operation on BigCommerce.

Step 1 — Centralize Your Master Catalog

To begin, import your existing (cleaned) product data into Catsy. Use your CSVs, spreadsheets, ERPs, and BigCommerce catalog, if you have one. Catsy will ingest your product attributes, SKUs, relationships, and media into a single master catalog.

Practical tip: During import, focus on creating a clean master SKU for each logical product (not per storefront). Use Catsy’s mapping tools to align incoming fields to your chosen taxonomy and attribute set.

Step 2 — Define a Clean Taxonomy and Attribute Model

Standardize your attribute names, such as size, color, and material, and enforce consistent values. For instance, you’ll want to use S, M, and L consistently across your data. A clean taxonomy makes filtering and analytics more reliable across your storefronts.

Practical tip: Create attribute templates for your different product types like apparel, electronics, and accessories so that every product of the same type shares a consistent structure.

Step 3 — Link Assets with an Integrated DAM

Upload your images, lifestyle shots, spec sheets, videos, and other data into Catsy’s DAM, then link them directly to your product records. With DAM integrated into your PIM, you avoid versioning errors and make sure that each storefront uses approved, current assets.

Practical tip: Tag assets with storefront-specific metadata (for example, “EU-main-image” or “US-lifestyle”) to quickly assemble storefront-specific galleries during syndication.

Step 4 — Configure Storefront-Specific Variations

Rather than duplicate your product records for each storefront, Catsy lets you maintain one master product record and then define storefront-specific overrides. This may include descriptions, asset selections, pricing tiers, and available variants.

Practical tip: Use conditional attribute logic to show or hide attributes based on your storefront or your target customer group. For example, show bulk-pack pricing for wholesale storefronts only.

Step 5 — Localize Content and Manage Versions

Catsy supports multi-language fields! You can store translated titles, descriptions, and meta data right alongside your master content. It also supports localized measurements so that a single product can show metric values on one shop and imperial on another.

Practical tip: Maintain translation workflows within Catsy to avoid publishing errors.

Step 6 — Automate Syndication to BigCommerce Storefronts

With your enriched catalog and storefront mappings in place, Catsy automatically syndicates product data and assets to each BigCommerce storefront according to your configuration. Syndication can be real-time or scheduled based on launch needs.

Practical tip: Set up a staging storefront for review before you push live updates to your stores. This reduces the risk of errors reaching customers.

Step 7 — Govern Data Quality with Rules and Completeness Scores

Catsy enforces validation rules and completeness thresholds. This ensures that your products will meet the minimum data requirements before they’re published. This prevents listing rejections and reduces the number of low-quality product pages across your stores.

Practical tip: Create different completeness profiles for each storefront type. For example, a premium storefront might require higher-resolution images and more detailed specifications than your outlet storefront.

Step 8 — Monitor, Report, and Iterate

Use Catsy’s dashboards and reporting to monitor attribute completeness, asset usage, and your storefronts’ performance. Regular audits will help you find gaps and optimize your catalog over time.

Practical tip: Create a monthly “catalog health” report that highlights missing attributes, low-performing images, or localization backlogs for stakeholders to act on.

Real-World Use Cases

Use Case 1 — Regional Expansion (Localized Storefronts)

A consumer electronics brand launched separate storefronts for the US, the UK, and the EU. Each of these storefronts needs localized product content including units of measurements and compliance documents.

Catsy stores localized fields, manages certified asset versions per region, and automates syndication. That means that the brand can add a new SKU just once, then publish accurate data to each store.

Use Case 2 — B2B and B2C Storefronts

A manufacturer runs a business-to-consumer storefront for retail consumers and a business-to-business storefront for wholesale buyers.

The business-to-business storefront requires net pricing, minimum order quantity, and plenty of tech specs while the business-to-consumer shop places emphasis on lifestyle images and promotional descriptions.

Catsy enabled the brand to create a single master product with storefront-level overrides, so product teams can update specs in one place while marketing customizes messaging for each storefront.

Use Case 3 — Brand and Outlet Storefronts

A fashion brand operates a premium and an outlet storefront. The outlet storefront features different pricing, limited products, and lower-res imagery while the fashion side focuses on high-resolution images and different pricing structure.

Catsy automates which assets and attributes flow to each storefront, maintaining brand consistency for each store.

Benefits: Operational, Commercial, and Customer-Facing

Operational Efficiency

You can reduce your time spent on manual tasks with centralized workflows, bulk editing, and automation. Your teams can reallocate hours from their manual updates to strategic operations.

Faster Time-to-Market

Because your product data is standardized within your PIM, launching a new storefront or a seasonal collection becomes much easier – and it’s automated, too!

Improved Data Quality and Compliance

Validation rules and governance reduce your risk of noncompliance in regulated markets. This is absolutely critical to your international expansion.

Better Customer Experience

Customers see consistent, accurate product content that’s tailored to their buying context and region. This boosts trust, reduces returns, and improves your conversion rates.

Scalable Growth

Catsy handles complexity so you can scale your footprint with confidence. No more fear of operational overload.

Implementation Best Practices

Start with a Pilot

Begin with one single category or storefront to refine your taxonomy, workflow, and syndication rules before you consider expanding catalog-wide.

Assemble a Cross-Functional Team

Include your product managers, marketing, localization experts, and IT in the PIM implementation to align requirements and approvals. Consider these teams’ input as you implement your PIM – they are your end users!

Define Governance Early

Outline who owns which attributes, approval SLAs (service-level agreements), and publishing rules to prevent confusion later.

Leverage Templates and Attribute Sets

You can use templates to reduce setup time for larger catalogs. Use them to enforce structure and speed up the onboarding process for new SKUs.

Invest in Training and Change Management

PIM adoption is most successful when teams understand the “why” and “how.” Formal training and documentation will reduce resistance and speed up adoption.

Key Metrics to Track After Launch

Following your Catsy implementation and your storefront syndication, you’ll want to track a few key metrics to quantify your success. Look at:

Product completeness rate
Time to publish for new SKUs
The reduction in manual edits
Your return rate per storefront
Organic traffic lift for your product pages

These KPIs will help you justify your BigCommerce PIM investment, and will guide your continuous improvement.

A measured approach ensures your multi-storefront strategy pays off quickly and sustainably.

FAQs

Can Catsy PIM manage pricing differences across storefronts?

Yes. Catsy supports storefront-specific pricing tiers, currency conversions, and pricing overrides that map directly to each BigCommerce storefront’s needs.

How does Catsy handle translated content?

Catsy stores translated fields alongside master content and supports versioning and approval workflows for localization teams to manage translations efficiently.

Will implementing Catsy require heavy IT involvement?

Catsy is designed for e-commerce teams. While IT support can streamline initial API integrations, Catsy offers tools and onboarding services to minimize heavy engineering effort.

Can I preview storefronts before publishing?

Yes! Catsy supports sandbox and staging environments so teams can review how data will render on each BigCommerce storefront before pushing live updates.

Is Catsy suitable for small merchants?

Catsy scales. Smaller merchants can benefit from the centralized control and DAM consolidation, while enterprise teams gain governance and automation to handle complex multi-storefront needs.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Multi-storefront strategies unlock huge growth opportunities for BigCommerce merchants, but only when product data is managed intelligently.

Catsy PIM turns the multi-storefront challenge into a strategic advantage by centralizing your catalog, enabling storefront-level customization, and automating syndication. The result? Faster launches, fewer errors, consistent brand experiences, and measurable operational efficiency.

Ready to simplify your BigCommerce multi-storefront operations and scale with confidence? Request a demo with Catsy today and see how a purpose-built PIM + DAM platform can make managing diverse catalogs not just possible, but effortless.