Top 4 Best Practices with Technical Product Catalogs

1. What do we mean by technical product catalogs?

A technical product catalog provides a library of complex products consisting of many components. When components are specific to the product, they also impact the varieties of SKUs required. This creates what seems like an endless stream of SKUs that become a monster to manage. That’s why a technical product catalog is, by nature, dense with product information.

It is designed to provide in-depth product knowledge for customers that usually isn’t easy to comprehend yet is still sought after in the e-commerce setting. Adding to the challenge, if the information isn’t easily comprehendible, it creates a poor customer experience leading to lost sales.

For example, specs of complex products, i.e., a sprinkler, can become quite technical with too much information not suited for the average consumer. However, an effective technical product catalog includes the need-to-know information that helps sell products and excludes the information that is irrelevant to the buying decisions.

2. Best Practice #1: Automate your spec and sell sheets

Your product catalog must contain accurate information. As product features change, you want your customers to see the latest version. However, manual processes increase the risk of pulling incorrect information from the wrong spec or sell sheet. What is the best way to avoid this? Automate your spec and sell sheets.

Using product information management software ensures your technical product catalog is always accurate because it automatically updates existing and new products. You can align product descriptions and complex product data quickly and accurately, streamline the approval process and reduce your time to market with Pimberly.

3. Best Practice #2: Carefully craft product descriptions

You can’t depend on techie teams to craft the actual product descriptions for your technical product catalog. Although they are no doubt the experts, they are not writers. Product descriptions are a selling tool and therefore need the finesse of a marketing expert. Also, marketplaces limit the number of characters you can use, which makes it difficult to compose effective product descriptions. This is even harder when dealing with highly complex technical information and specs begging for easy-to-understand laymen’s terms.

As mentioned, your product descriptions in your technical product catalog need to highlight the most important features that the average consumer will find relevant. If someone is more technically inclined or curious, you can make it easier for them to drill down to find more complex information, whether it is through a video, downloadable spec sheets, or a longer version of your product description. This approach enables you to avoid leaving customers hanging because your information is too vague yet hits all the right notes to sell the product as the solution for common pain points.

You’re probably thinking, “Whoa, who am I going to find to do all that?” The answer is simple. Use a PIM. Pimberly automates product descriptions using AI, providing the character count and keywords for each item. It makes it easier to do the creative legwork to develop customer-friendly information that is relevant and relatable.

With the work done, the new product description is fed into the usual workflows, including approvals. As a result, your marketing team is satisfied with the tone and manner, legal sees you’ve included the appropriate warnings, and your product development team confirms the copy is accurate.

4. Best Practice #3: Centralize your 3D vector images with the right PIM/DAM

Customers also want images they can use as a visual reference. When you use a PIM/DAM all your digital assets are housed in the same central location, making it easy to find and place them with the respective product descriptions. A user can natively view these images within the platform through Pimberly’s DAM and send it along with enriched product information, downloadable spec sheets, video, and all other relevant digital assets.

Imagine the ease of putting together a complete product information page collecting all related, prepared, and approved information to create a single, comprehensive page for your technical product catalogs. Everything is accounted for, including brand tone and manner, to create consistent customer experiences across all marketplaces.

A PIM facilitates all these best practices and more. It is the single tool you need to create comprehensive, engaging, accurate catalog pages suited to the specific needs of your technical products.