Top Catalog Management Software Trends in 2024
- Catalog management software is evolving to meet the needs of modern eCommerce.
- Key trends include supporting remote work through cloud platforms, powering omnichannel sales via centralized data distribution, engaging customers using rich media assets, and integrating with other software via APIs for consistent information.
- These capabilities help businesses manage product data complexity in today's fragmented but interconnected retail ecosystem.
In this Article
The eCommerce industry is booming, and there seems to be nothing that will stop the current momentum. A recent analysis indicates that global eCommerce sales will expand by 8.9% in 2023, bringing the market value to $5.8 trillion. The growth rate will likely increase to 9.4% next year before slowing down to 8.6% in 2025. But amid the pomp and fanfare, the specter of product content management continues to haunt businesses.
Product content forms the backbone of the eCommerce business. It is the foundation on which retailers build successful brands and create an ecosystem that generates the sales momentum seen in the growth numbers. But effective management and displaying of product information is not a cakewalk unless one enjoys the services of catalog creation software and catalog management software. The tools help businesses improve product visibility, accuracy, and consistency, ultimately increasing their sales and customer satisfaction—no wonder the adoption rate of these tools is rising at breakneck speed. In fact, a Grand View Research report shows that the global catalog management system market size will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5% between 2021 and 2023, faster than global eCommerce sales. Rising adoption aside, what trends power the catalog management software market in 2024? This article answers this question, but first, a quick overview of the tool.
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What is Catalog Management Software, and Why is it Essential for eCommerce Businesses?
eCommerce businesses deal with a long list of products, often in the thousands. The technical term for this list of items is a catalog. These items are showcased in online stores in a way that potential customers can find what they’re searching for effortlessly. Mismatched products and irrelevant search results lead to poor customer shopping experiences, emphasizing the need for improved catalog management. This is where catalog software comes into play.
Catalog management is precious for enterprises aiming to consolidate their product information. This versatile tool empowers users to create, refine, and publish product content, enhancing sales processes with visuals, pricing, and descriptions. The software seamlessly integrates with various eCommerce frameworks and utilities, including web content control, transaction gateways, and subscription oversight. Catalog software primarily streamlines catalog arrangement, administration, and timely updates for enhanced product management and customer experiences.
Catalog software ensures accurate listings and organized products, enhancing online store functionality for improved user experience and business success. Let’s consider some software catalog examples to illustrate its functionality. These tools automate updates, keeping customers informed with the latest details and enhancing user experiences through efficient information management. They offer categorization, navigation filters, and personalized product recommendations based on customer preferences, enhancing user experiences and engagement. It enhances customer experience and streamlines internal processes, proving crucial for eCommerce businesses in the competitive online market.
Essential Features of the Software
A catalog management software achieves several objectives, including product information management, because of the following features:
- Centralized information repository: The software stores all product-related data in a single location, ensuring consistency across different platforms.
- Bulk editing: Businesses can efficiently make changes to multiple product listings simultaneously.
- Multi-channel support: The tool enables businesses to manage and publish product information across various sales channels, including their own website, social media platforms, marketplaces, and more.
- Rich media management: The software enables businesses to upload and manage high-quality product media assets, which are crucial for providing customers with accurate and attractive representations of products.
- Attribute management: This feature enables businesses to define and manage product attributes such as size, color, material, and other specifications. It helps customers make informed choices.
- Inventory management: Software for Catalog management often includes inventory tracking features, helping businesses keep track of stock levels, manage restocking, and prevent overselling.
- Pricing and discount management: The software allows businesses to set and manage product prices, apply discounts, and run promotional campaigns.
- Localization and internationalization: For businesses operating globally, the software may support multiple languages, currencies, and region-specific product information.
- Version control: This feature enables businesses to keep track of different versions of product information and revert to previous versions if necessary.
- Integration with other systems: The software often integrates with other eCommerce tools such as inventory management, order processing, and CRM software.
- User access and permissions: Different users within an organization may have varying levels of access and permissions to manage product information, ensuring data security.
- Data synchronization: The software ensures that product information is consistently updated across all sales channels, reducing the risk of displaying outdated information.
- SEO optimization: Some catalog management tools, such as Catsy PIM, offer features to optimize product listings for search engines, improving their visibility and discoverability.
- Readiness reporting: This feature allows users to generate reports highlighting the current status of product information, including its accuracy, completeness, and alignment with specific requirements.
Why is Catalog Management Software Essential for eCommerce Businesses?
With such an extensive collection of products that a typical online business maintains, catalog creation and management software is invaluable. It helps them:
- Maintain consistent product information across multiple platforms for a seamless shopping experience.
- Effortlessly update and manage products in bulk, saving time compared to manual systems like simple spreadsheets.
- Easily sync product data across various sales channels to reach a wider audience.
- Create visually appealing listings with images and rich content to attract and engage customers.
- Keep track of stock levels and avoid overselling with automated inventory tracking.
- Tailor product offerings based on customer preferences and behaviors for targeted marketing.
- Ensure adherence to industry standards and regulations with validated product data.
- Easily manage growing product catalogs and adapt to changing business needs.
With such a high level of utility and wide-ranging benefits to users, there is no doubt that the adoption rate of software has plenty of room for growth. But what specific aspects make a robust catalog creation and management tool in 2023? Let’s delve into the top trends in the evolution of catalog software.
1. Essential for Remote and Hybrid-Work Productivity
We are firmly in the remote work era, which was massively accelerated by the events succeeding the coronavirus pandemic. However, one can argue that remote work was made possible by the intersection of events and technology; while the pandemic forced more businesses to adopt work-from-home (WFH) or away-from-office policies, the technical capacity to sustain this shift was ripe. The technology at the heart of the transformation were mobile devices, video conferencing, collaborative software, and cloud computing. For instance, a Harvard Business Review (HBR) analysis indicates that only about 20 percent of the workdays in the US were done remotely prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, this number rose to about 80 percent for office workers. And powering the transformation were various solutions built on cloud technology.
With eCommerce workplaces also impacted, businesses suddenly realized that cloud-based catalog software was necessary. This implied a complete shift from print catalog software and the digital versions that relied on on-premise facilities.
Why is Cloud-based Catalog Management Software Necessary for Remote Work?
Many studies have concluded that remote work could be the best approach for many businesses in sectors like eCommerce. One study suggested that remote work can improve job satisfaction, performance, and commitment when done right. However, this arrangement could pose issues such as reduced collaboration. In eCommerce, it gets worse when the organization relies on manual processes for critical aspects of the business, like product information management.
Thankfully, cloud-based catalog software presents the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of remote work while avoiding most issues, including reduced collaboration. Most cloud-based catalog systems have robust built-in collaboration features accessible remotely. Some systems, like Catsy, allow users to comment or chat with colleagues on product data and catalogs within the software without needing external tools or email. Also, users can receive notifications and alerts when catalogs are created, updated, or published, helping them stay informed and aware of the changes and actions that affect their work. Without solutions like these, the eCommerce industry can easily collapse under the weight of challenges to a business approach that has defined its recent success, remote work. Cloud-based software allows businesses to avoid disorganization and mismanagement, often resulting from slow communication.
How does Catalog Management Solution Streamline Remote Work?
It is clear that catalog creation and management software is an indispensable tool for online businesses, particularly in this day and age where a considerable part of the organization’s team is likely to work remotely. But precisely what does the system do to streamline remote work? Well, the usefulness of software in streamlining remote work can be organized into three general themes:
- Efficient collaboration and accessibility
- Data accuracy and security
- Flexibility and scalability
Efficient Collaboration and Accessibility
A catalog management software will allow the organization to centralize access to product content such that team members can access the catalog from anywhere. This centralized repository ensures that updates to the catalog are reflected to all accredited users in real time, avoiding version conflicts. Of course, the fact all team members can see the exact details of a product (from wherever they are) facilitates collaborative editing. The collaborative editing feature is supercharged by the efficient communication system built into the catalog management solution. More importantly, most catalog software solutions have features that automate workflows, including streamlining the approval and onboarding processes.
Data Accuracy and Security
When you have a single platform for creating, editing, and enriching product information, the organization enjoys a single source of truth for all product content. This solution becomes the central repository from where product data originates and flows into the various organizational departments and teams. This system helps businesses achieve consistency, entrenching reliability and promoting efficiency. Having a single source of truth also has a security connotation – it helps the organization implement robust security measures to protect sensitive product information. With all information about an organization’s complete list of products stored in a central location, automated backups can be performed, which have sound recovery options that eliminate the risk of data loss.
Flexibility and Scalability
Expenditure on IT can quickly skyrocket and deplete a business’s bottom line, especially if an organization maintains on-site IT infrastructure. For example, the business must have an internal fully-fledged IT department to maintain the infrastructure. Remote access eliminates this problem because the providers shoulder the legwork. This introduces several other capabilities, such as the ability to scale operations as the product catalog grows easily, monitoring teams remotely, and, most importantly, teams being able to access product content from several devices without restrictions.
2. Omnichannel Selling
The holy grail of eCommerce is the ability of a business to showcase products to as many potential (and existing) customers as possible. That is why a multi-channel selling approach is popular in the industry. However, the problem with multi-channel selling is that it only affords you the chance to use all available channels to acquire customer interest. You will get the desired visibility all right, but that is all this approach earns.
In contrast, the omnichannel approach goes the extra mile, offering a seamless experience between the channels. Otherwise stated, this strategy aims to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience across multiple online and offline channels.
For example, suppose you own a clothing store that sells online and offline. With a multi-channel strategy, you might have a website, a mobile app, a physical store, and a social media account. Any of these channels allows customers to browse and buy your products. Still, they might encounter different prices, promotions, inventory, or customer service depending on the channel they use. More often than not, this creates confusion and frustration, reducing customer loyalty and satisfaction.
The omnichannel strategy circumvents the pain points that may frustrate customers. With this strategy, you would use the same channels as above, but you would also ensure that they are connected and synchronized. This way, customers can access the same information, products, and services through any preferred channel and switch between them seamlessly. For instance, they can check the availability of an item online before visiting the store or buy it online and pick it up in-store. They can also get personalized recommendations based on their browsing and purchase history across channels or receive consistent support through chat, phone, or email. The result is a positive and memorable customer experience and increased trust and retention rates.
How Catalog Management Solution Helps Online Businesses Manage Their Omnichannel Strategy
A centralized, efficient, and flexible product management system is central to the success of the omnichannel strategy for eCommerce businesses. Catalog management software takes up this role perfectly, with platforms like Catsy providing both product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM) capabilities in one environment. With such a system, businesses get a centralized information repository, and capabilities like bulk editing, multi-channel support, attribute management, and version control. But how exactly does the catalog software achieve the desired ideals for an eCommerce omnichannel strategy?
- By creating and distributing product feeds: The software enables online businesses to create and distribute product feeds tailored to the specific formats and requirements of various sales channels. This is critical because different platforms often have unique data formatting and categorization needs. The software can:
- Transform product information into the required format for each channel, ensuring that the data aligns with the platform’s standards.
- Customize product feeds, optimizing them for different platforms, whether it’s an eCommerce website, marketplace, or social media.
- Automate the scheduling and distribution of product feeds, ensuring that the most up-to-date information is sent to each channel at the right time.
- By providing real-time updates across channels: Catalog management solutions ensures that product information is updated in real-time across all channels. This is crucial for maintaining accuracy and consistency, as well as for providing a seamless shopping experience. The software accomplishes this through:
- Storing product information centrally, which makes it easy to update details such as pricing, inventory levels, descriptions, and images.
- Immediately synchronizing any changes made to the product data across all sales channels, preventing discrepancies and ensuring that customers see the latest information.
- Automating real-time updates, reducing the need for manual intervention. This is especially beneficial for managing extensive inventories and frequent updates.
- By tracking product data readiness: The software provides valuable insights into the status of product content, informing users whether specific data is ready for publishing and whether it meets all organizational and industry standards.
3. Rich Digital Asset Support to Propel Engagement
One thing that is rarely mentioned about online businesses is that when a few layers are peeled back, they are essentially marketing entities. On the surface, an eCommerce company may be involved in selling electronics, but you’ll find that the business spends the largest share of operational expenses on marketing itself through various digital and traditional channels to reach and attract potential customers. Also, because the business has limited physical presence and interaction with its customers, it relies more on marketing to communicate and connect with them and to provide them with a positive and memorable customer experience.
For this strategy to succeed (i.e., to attract and retain customers’ attention), the business must capture and hold potential customers’ interest. And none does this better than rich digital assets. Examples of these assets include high-quality videos and images, interactive content, audio, documents, and more. As businesses increasingly rely on digital assets, catalog software has emerged to meet this need. Solutions like Catsy that have built-in DAM capabilities provide a secure storage system that unifies all digital asset files, and thanks to their cloud-based infrastructure, they are an ideal solution for managing digital assets.
Why is rich digital asset support critical? According to a report by Forrester, 75% of marketers agree that rich media assets are essential for creating engaging customer experiences. Another study by Cloudinary found that 67% of consumers say that the quality of product images is paramount when making a purchase decision online. Simply put, rich digital asset support is a key factor for driving engagement in eCommerce. The strategy can effectively help online businesses stand out from the competition, attract more customers, and increase sales.
4. Supports App Integrations for Consistent Data
The entire eCommerce industry runs on an ecosystem of platforms, systems, and devices. It means a successful online business must find a way to exchange information among the different pieces for a consistent and seamless shopping experience for customers. Powering the interconnectivity are APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), which allow different software systems to communicate with each other.
Consider an online business using catalog creation and management software to handle product content. When ready, the product information will be published to several channels, including marketing, sales, and internal systems. But imagine for a second that the catalog software doesn’t support API integration, effectively blinding the information it holds from other systems. Such a scenario is unsustainable in the current eCommerce ecosystem. This is to say robust PIM and DAM solutions of the day have built-in API gateways for supporting third-party integrations.
The integrations between catalog management software and other platforms, such as marketplaces, achieve an objective that is critical to an optimum customer shopping experience; information consistency. How does this relationship work?
Consider Catsy, a PIM platform with built-in DAM capabilities. This software has a direct API integration with Shopify, which enables Shopify store owners to access and manage their product content (product data and rich media assets) directly from the Catsy PIM platform. The gateway allows store owners to upload assets like images directly to their Shopify store and use them to populate product pages, collections, and other marketing materials.
This integration is crucial for many reasons, but support for consistent data is the most important. It achieves the objective by allowing changes made to product information in the Catsy system to be automatically synchronized with your Shopify store. As such, your content remains consistent across different sales and marketing channels.
5. PDF Catalog Generation
The strategic combination of print and digital catalogs offers a multi-faceted approach to engaging customers. Print catalogs provides a unique sensory experience, resonating with a diverse audience, especially for folks who like traditional shopping. Meanwhile, digital catalogs bring the convenience of seamless online shopping, enriched by interactive features that captivate tech-savvy consumers.
This dual approach yields a host of advantages for eCommerce businesses. Both print and digital catalogs broaden the reach, which addresses varied customer preferences. Print catalogs foster emotional connections, while digital catalogs ensure easy sharing and instant purchasing. This harmonious pairing also reinforces brand consistency across platforms, bolstering identity. Catsy’s innovative solutions stand at the forefront of this revolution.
Catsy offers a comprehensive solution for businesses with its innovative PDF Generator and Digital Catalog creator. The PDF Generator is a powerful tool, enabling businesses to create personalized catalogs on the fly, streamlining their marketing and sales efforts. This dynamic feature caters to specific clients, industries, or occasions, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual adjustments. Whether it’s presenting targeted product ranges or adapting content for seasonal promotions, Catsy’s PDF Generator provides the flexibility and efficiency needed to resonate effectively with customers. Additionally, Catsy’s Digital Catalog creator serves as a seamless extension of the brand portal, transforming product management and presentation. Integrated effortlessly, this tool allows businesses to curate and customize digital catalogs that engage their audience, all while maintaining brand consistency. This extension not only simplifies content creation but also enhances brand coherence, ensuring a lasting impact on customers through captivating digital catalogs.
Final Words
Amid eCommerce growth, catalog software stays vital for seamless product management in online businesses. The trends highlighted in this discussion will shape the evolution of the tool in 2023 and beyond.
Most importantly, businesses that leverage these advancements in catalog software, including utilizing the best catalog design software and employing specialized cataloging software for collections, will position themselves well to boost productivity, reach wider audiences, drive engagement, and maintain data consistency across channels and touchpoints. The advancements will strengthen organizations’ product content management systems, allowing them to focus on innovation while relying on automation and integration to handle the complexities of showcasing their products digitally.
The bottom line is that catalog creation and management is a multifaceted challenge in a complex retail ecosystem. Still, the right software solution, whether it’s the best catalog design software or cataloging software for collections, empowers users to overcome fragmentation, maximize efficiencies, and deliver memorable shopping experiences. As consumer demand and expectations continue rising, catalog management systems will only grow more indispensable for online businesses seeking to sustain momentum and remain competitive.
As you explore the dynamic landscape of eCommerce and the pivotal role that catalog management software plays, take the next step in revolutionizing your business operations. Imagine a catalog management software that is not only comprehensive but also fully interactive, enabling you to seamlessly navigate through your products with ease. Catsy, a leader in this space, offers specialized cataloging software for collections, and advanced features like interactive product displays, real-time comparison tools, and effortless distribution across various platforms. Don’t just take our word for it – experience the power of Catsy firsthand by scheduling a demo today. Witness how Catsy can transform your catalog management into a streamlined, efficient, and customer-centric process, keeping you ahead of the curve in the competitive eCommerce arena.
Catalog management software is the best tool for creating and managing product catalogs. Dedicated platforms like Catsy provide robust features for centralized data, bulk editing, automation, and multi-channel publishing. For most eCommerce businesses, catalog software is ideal compared to makeshift options like spreadsheets or content management systems.
By structuring product data in columns, enhancing formatting for readability, inserting visuals like images, and exporting as a PDF, you can create product catalogs on spreadsheets. However, when dealing with large catalogs, spreadsheets have limitations, making dedicated catalog software better suited for complex needs.
Catalog systems like Catsy integrate with eCommerce platforms to sync product details like inventory levels, preventing overselling by automatically updating quantities.
Yes, catalog tools allow you to publish product data to any channel in the optimal format, ensuring consistency across channels.
Yes, catalog tools like Catsy have built-in DAM to store, organize, and share product visuals from a central location for omnichannel usage.
