Marketplace eCommerce

Product Catalog for Marketplace eCommerce

October 5, 2022  |  8 min read
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Why Use Product Catalogs for Marketplace eCommerce?

A product catalog for your marketplace eCommerce platform is an absolute most. Product catalogs are what allow users to intuitively search for and find products and services offered on your marketplace platform.

To get the most out of your product catalog, you'll want to customize it to your specific workflows and offerings. This means customizing aspects such as the presentation style, filtering system, search function, and more. How you do so depends on your marketplace eCommerce website and what your users are looking for.

How Product Catalogs Help Marketplace eCommerce

Implementing a product catalog to your marketplace eCommerce platform will give your customers a better user experience. This, in turn, will drive traffic and revenue.

Through our many years of working with clients who use product catalogs for marketplace eCommerce, we've discovered some key issues that a customizable and robust product catalog system can solve:

  • When Will I Get This? – This is often a question customers ask when they are having an item shipped to them. That's why having shipping estimates integrated right on your product catalogs can be an extremely helpful feature.
  • Is It In Stock? – Customers don’t want to be surprised with the message “item not available” when they get to checkout. That's why it's a good idea to let them know right away if it's in stock or not, and if they can purchase now or if they must wait until a new shipment comes in.
  • How Can I Optimize Costs? – With the right setup, product catalogs can be vital to helping your customers save on items and fulfillment costs. Customers will appreciate the opportunity to optimize their logistics, and this can also build trust.
  • Can I Get A Refund or Exchange? – No vendor wants to get this question from unsatisfied customers, and even exchanges (which often don't charge the customer for shipping and handling costs) can be expensive for sellers. This is especially crucial for large orders. To minimize the risk of this happening due to ordering process errors, you can set up a workflow for certain types of orders to automatically trigger an approval process, so everyone's 100% sure they are happy with the order before it's placed.

Get the Most out of Your Marketplace Product Catalog

Your product catalog will do a lot more for your marketplace eCommerce business if it's customized to your marketplace platform and specific business offerings.

That's why our product catalogs are made to be modifiable. You can also integrate your product catalog with any ERP, CMS, or other backend software, giving your marketplace eCommerce site a single source of truth.

Product Catalog Features for Marketplace eCommerce

  • Map View & Search – With this type of presentation, customers can search based on zip code and use an interactive map view to see where different offerings, warehouses, and stores are located.
  • Automatic Workflows – Large or expensive orders may require an approval process before a customer can order. Our product catalog system can be set up to automate some of the steps in that process.
  • Automatic Updates – With an ERP integrated with your back-office system, inventory and other details are automatically updated onto your website. End users can view whether something is in stock, backordered, or out of stock, and set up a notification for when something becomes in stock again.
  • Optimized Presentation – The presentation and format of the product catalog automatically adjusts to the user’s preferences and chosen catalog and filters.
  • Product Comparisons – Product catalogs give users the ability to compare products quickly, which gives them the information they need to make a purchasing decision.
  • Enhanced Filtering – Built-in analytics within the catalog help you determine what people are filtering for. You can then utilize machine learning to automatically progress the most often used filters to the top of the list for a more user-friendly filtering system.
  • Navigation Depth – A navigation menu can be included on the side of the page for easy access. And beyond category filters, there’s filters for category and suppliers, too. With this depth of filtering and navigation, users can easily access different areas of the catalog.
  • Minimum Order – Some items may have a large minimum order quantity, so it’s important that users can set a minimum order that’s required so they can see if it’s within their budget range.
  • Supplier Details – In addition to details about the product itself, there can also be details about the supplier, such as whether the supplier is on the site, their response rate, and what seller level they are (e.g., Silver or Gold). These factors help drive interaction between the buyer and the seller.
  • Promotions – The product catalog can also display personalized marketing for different sellers who want to promote their products within the marketplace. You can have sponsored listings at the top with organic results beneath those.
  • Select the First View – Choose what type of product catalog page and filters customers will land on first, which will help guide them through the rest of the process. This can also be dynamic based on where the customer is coming from on the web or your site.
  • Product Variations – Let customers sort through the variations of a product, e.g., different sizes of track spikes. Variations can have different prices that are dynamically applied based on what's selected.
  • Dynamic Pricing – Different prices can show up for different customers on select products. When a customer logs into their account, they’ll see their account-specific discounts, promotions, coupons, etc. Dynamic price ranges can differ based on the filters selected as well, such as the number of items and type of material.
  • Dynamic Search Field – The catalog search field can be dynamic based on the customer that’s logged in. A customer might have a particular vendor they usually buy from, or a certain set of items they often buy. When they go to search and start typing, the dynamic lookup field will filter the list of items based on the activity associated with that account.
  • Custom Fields – Products in the catalog can have an unlimited number of attributes or custom fields that work as filters. Products can automatically have certain attributes applied to them when they are placed into a category, and we can add this data dynamically based on an ERP integration.
  • Stock Indicator – The product catalog can include a visual indicator of stock levels. There can be a green dot for in stock, yellow for backordered, and red for out of stock. There can also be rollover icon tooltips where users can get more information.
  • Discount Indicator – If there’s a discount, it’s good practice to show how much the discount is for. This is also something that can be set up and filtered for in Clarity’s product catalog.
  • Details in Rollover – We have a rollover where, if you want to turn on this feature, users can compactly see options to add to a favorites or wish list, add to a compare list, or add to an in-stock alert. Or the rollover can contain information about delivery and shipping options, for example.
  • Sticky Bar – A sticky bar that floats down when going through the list of items can let users see various details. If fulfillment and containers are important for your marketplace, the sticky bar can show the capacity on different containers so users can optimize their load.

Product Catalog Example: Marketplace-Specific Features

A product catalog for your marketplace eCommerce platform will require some industry-specific functions. As an example, we'll outline the specific functions for a marketplace platform.

  • Multistore & Multivendor – Tailor your product catalog for a multistore and multivendor marketplace platform by having landing pages for affiliates or vendors/stores within your platform. Show items for a particular vendor and have branded stores within your platform.
  • Product Photos & Card Layout – Let customers sort through products by viewing product photos as cards side by side. This is an easier way to browse that shows the photos in larger detail and minimizes other information. The user can click to expand or change their view to get details and specs.
  • Notifications & Reminders – Decrease cart abandonment by letting customers set preferences for notifications and reminding them (at reasonable time intervals) if they have items still in their cart. They can also set up their preferred methods for receiving notifications, such as text, call, or email.
  • Versatile Filters & ERP Integration – Integrate your product catalog with your ERP software to have a single source of truth for all your attributes, filters, products, and everything else in your catalog. You can set up attributes as filters for customers to use or as behind-the-scenes attributes for analytics or internal workflows.

Key Takeaways

Tailor to Your Marketplace

There's a lot you can do with product catalogs for marketplace eCommerce, but you'll get the most out of it if you tailor to your specific marketplace offerings. Customers need to be able to find products intuitively or you'll lose them. Don't drive customers away—invite them in with our robust marketplace software.

Optimize Performance with Analytics

With built-in analytics for your marketplace eCommerce platform, you'll have the tools you need to continuously improve your website and offerings. Learn how customers search and which filters and functions they use the most so you can bring those to the forefront.

Use Robust Marketplace Software

To ensure all your needs are met, it's best to work with an experienced software developer like Clarity to get the robust, customizable features you need for marketplace eCommerce. It's one of the best ways to scale your business.

Discover Your Optimal Product Catalog

We've been developing marketplace eCommerce platforms and their product catalogs for years, and we're happy to share our expertise. That's why we offer a free, no-obligation discovery session, where our experts go over your business's needs and offer advice on what functions would tackle those the best. Don't wait to get the solution you need—click the button below and get started today!

Get A Free Discovery Session

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Author
 
Written by Autumn Spriggle
Autumn Spriggle is a Content Writer at Clarity Ventures who stays up to date on the latest trends in eCommerce, software development, and related topics to provide readers with the latest and greatest. She strives to help people like you realize the full potential for their business.

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