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Table of Contents

1. Data Accuracy, Completeness, and Update Frequency
2. Tracking Customer Engagement & Underperforming Product Lines
3. Using Insights to Refine Catalog Structure and Support Sales Teams
4. Real-World Success
5. Further Reading

Data Accuracy, Completeness, and Update Frequency

A well-maintained product catalog is essential to ensuring a seamless customer experience and optimizing operational efficiency. But how can businesses assess the health of their catalogs? The first step is to track core health indicators: data accuracy, completeness, and update frequency. These three metrics provide insight into how well the catalog is functioning and where improvements can be made.

• Data Accuracy: Inaccurate product data leads to lost sales and frustrated customers. Whether a customer is looking at your website or interacting with your sales team, the product information they receive must be correct. Tracking error rates, such as incorrect descriptions, specifications, or prices, helps businesses identify problem areas. Inaccuracies can cause significant delays and impact buyer trust—especially in B2B environments where precision is critical.

• Completeness: A catalog with incomplete product data can leave customers searching for answers elsewhere. Essential information such as product descriptions, images, technical specs, and pricing must be filled in for every SKU. 

  Companies like Amazon excel by providing comprehensive product details, which in turn boosts conversions and reduces return rates. Measuring product completeness as a KPI ensures that customers have all the information they need to make purchasing decisions.

   

• Update Frequency: Catalogs must be kept up-to-date to reflect the latest pricing, availability, and product features. Stale or outdated information can create friction in the buying process. Companies should track how often their catalogs are refreshed and aim to automate updates wherever possible. Businesses that rely on manual updates can fall behind competitors, while automated catalog management allows for real-time synchronization across all channels.

Tracking Customer Engagement and Identifying Underperforming Product Lines

Catalog health metrics are just the beginning. Businesses also need to understand how customers are interacting with their catalogs and which products are driving the most value. By tracking customer engagement, companies can pinpoint high-performing product lines and identify underperforming ones that may require adjustments.

• Customer Engagement: Monitoring how users interact with your catalog, including product searches, time spent on specific product pages, and product views, can reveal valuable insights. Engagement data can highlight which products are most attractive to customers and which may need further promotion or optimization.

  For example, Zoro, a subsidiary of Grainger, used engagement data to spotlight high-demand products and align their marketing efforts, boosting conversions by 18%.

   

• Underperforming Products: Not all products in your catalog will be stars. Some SKUs may struggle to generate interest or sales. Identifying these under performers is crucial to optimizing inventory and marketing efforts. By analyzing sales data and comparing it against engagement metrics, businesses can decide whether to discontinue or re-promote certain products. This approach allows for more targeted marketing strategies and helps streamline product lines.

Using Insights to Refine Catalog Structure and Support Sales Teams

Catalog data isn't just for customers—it’s a powerful tool for internal teams as well. By leveraging insights from catalog interactions, businesses can refine their catalog structure to support sales teams and drive efficiency across departments.

• Refining Catalog Structure: A well-structured catalog makes it easier for both customers and sales teams to find the right products. Catalogs that are overloaded with irrelevant or outdated SKUs can slow down the sales process. By using data on product popularity, search patterns, and engagement, businesses can reorganize their catalogs to highlight best-sellers, improve navigation, and remove unnecessary clutter.

• Supporting Sales Teams: The sales team benefits from a dynamic catalog that reflects real-time changes in product data, including availability, pricing, and customer-specific recommendations. Sales reps can use this information to craft tailored pitches and provide accurate quotes on the spot. As Rockwell Automation discovered, implementing a dynamic catalog system that integrates with their CRM gave sales reps a powerful tool to engage customers with up-to-date information, resulting in faster deal closures and a 15% increase in sales.

Real-World Success: Unlocking the Power of Catalog Data

Let’s look at how Schneider Electric leveraged catalog metrics to optimize their product offerings. With a diverse catalog spanning energy management solutions, they needed to ensure their products were meeting regional demands.

By analyzing customer engagement data, Schneider Electric identified product lines that were underperforming in specific markets. This insight allowed them to adjust their regional offerings, leading to a 20% increase in market share in Asia-Pacific.

Similarly, Grainger used catalog health indicators to streamline their catalog and improve product accuracy.

By focusing on reducing error rates and enhancing data completeness, they not only improved customer satisfaction but also reduced return rates by 15%. Their catalog became a strategic asset, driving both customer engagement and sales growth.

Customer Insights Help Refine Catalog Structure and Support Sales Teams

The value of a catalog extends beyond product listings—it’s also a key resource for sales teams. The right metrics can inform not only which products to focus on but also how to position them to prospective clients. Metrics like time-to-market for new products and sales cycle lengths are crucial in fine-tuning catalog structure to better align with sales strategies.

Philips Lighting faced a challenge in launching new smart home lighting solutions to its B2B partners. Their traditional catalog structure made it difficult for the sales team to quickly highlight new product features, leading to longer sales cycles.

By analyzing time-to-market metrics and sales feedback, Philips restructured their catalog to spotlight new arrivals and key selling points. This adjustment enabled their sales teams to focus on high-margin products and speed up client onboarding, resulting in a 20% faster time-to-market for new lighting solutions.

Similarly, GE Healthcare used catalog insights to support their sales team in pitching complex medical equipment. By tracking which products generated the most interest and tailoring their catalog layout to highlight those, they improved the efficiency of their sales conversations.

The result was a 10% reduction in the average length of their sales cycle, allowing GE Healthcare to respond faster to customer needs and secure more contracts.

By refining catalog structure based on insights, businesses can ensure that their sales teams have the best possible tools at their disposal, ultimately driving more effective engagements and faster time-to-market.

Conclusion: Measuring the True Impact of Your Catalog Strategy

A successful catalog management strategy is not just about organizing product data—it’s about measuring what truly matters. By tracking key metrics like data accuracy, completeness, update frequency, and customer engagement, businesses can gain a holistic view of their catalog’s performance and unlock new growth opportunities.

The brands mentioned in this series—Schneider Electric, Grainger, and Rockwell Automation—illustrate how a well-managed, dynamic catalog can become a powerful driver of business success. As companies continue to evolve in the digital age, measuring the impact of their catalog strategy will be essential to staying ahead in the competitive landscape.

By integrating these key metrics into your catalog management process, your business will not only improve operational efficiency but also enhance customer satisfaction and maximize sales. Remember: a strong catalog is not just a collection of products—it’s a vital tool for strategic growth.

You don’t want your data to be siloed. Your company’s CRM, PIM and PLM solutions shouldn’t operate in a vacuum, either. Surefront is a unified product collaboration platform to power growth and ROI. Our patented PIM, CRM, and PLM solutions streamline the omni channel sales, merchandising and product development processes. By combining these essential functionalities, Surefront creates a single source of truth throughout your product lifecycle, sales and listing processes. 

The results? Up to 150% more revenue per employee and a 40% shorter product development cycle is just the beginning. Try our 10x ROI calculator to see your company’s potential profits. Or, skip the noise and book a custom demo with one of our unified product collaboration management experts today. The retail industry evolves quickly and has a lot of moving parts. We do all of the research, so you don’t have to. Stay ahead of market fluctuations, trends and new features by subscribing to our Unified Product Collaboration Management Blog.

Further Reading

The Essential Guide to Product Development and Merchandising
Get Started with Our Free Tech Pack Template Generator
Transforming Your Catalog Management with PIM
Catalog Management with a Centralized Approach
Evolve Your Product Catalog into a Powerful Tool for Growth

References

1. Shopify (2024). 20 Key Ecommerce Metrics to Track in 2024. Retrieved from https://www.shopify.com
   
   
2. BigCommerce (2024). Ecommerce Metrics + KPIs in 2024: Measure Your Success. Retrieved from https://www.bigcommerce.com
   
   
3. Digital Silk (2023). How to Measure eCommerce Success: 15 Metrics & KPIs to Track. Retrieved from https://www.digitalsilk.com
   
   
4. Hotjar (2023). 14 Essential Ecommerce Metrics and KPIs to Track. Retrieved from https://www.hotjar.com
   
   
5. Oberlo (2023). 65+ Crucial Key Performance Indicators for Ecommerce. Retrieved from https://www.oberlo.com