When planning your online catalog, you need to take several central factors into consideration: Firstly, your online catalog is your showplace, and as such it must captivate your visitors as soon as they enter your website. Secondly, you must provide the information potential customers are seeking accurately and clearly. Thirdly, the data about products must be easily accessible. And finally, in contrast to physical stores, there is no sales staff to explain the pros and cons of various products or demonstrate how they are used. So your catalog must provide easily understood specifications and descriptions.

Our 5 insights you stand to gain from an optimized Product List Page

1. Learn how to attract your target audience

One of the most important ways to attract your audience is through the use of the right keywords. For example, if you sell rings, make sure to place them all on a single page rather than spread them out. Optimize the category by using different keywords for each type of ring – for example, diamond rings, ruby rings, antique rings, etc. This way, you will bring in the right traffic through search engines. This type of category structure enables you to gain insights regarding the popularity of various items and better ways to promote others. 

2. Gather information from your customer

You can acquire valuable insights by consulting with your customers regarding how they feel about your catalog. Ask them for ratings and comments under each product listing. Find out if they would recommend your website/product to a friend, and if not, why. Enable them to share your pages on social media, and take note which media they prefer for future engagement. The category structure enables you to drill down to gain insights about specific products. 

3. Manage your inventory wisely

Insights on the category level contribute to intelligent inventory planning. By gathering data about sales volumes in each category and sub-category, you can make accurate predictions about future sales and order stock accordingly. This information prevents costly overstocking and also eliminates the kind of understocking that frustrates potential customers. 

4. Test your visual presentation

According to some marketing experts, 93% of consumers consider visual appearance to be the key deciding factor in a purchasing decision. Due to the fact that end customers are unable to feel or try on online products, it is crucial to provide high-quality, enticing visuals that will captivate your buyers. Provide as many views of the product as possible so that potential customers can get a real feel of the item. Some automated catalog platforms provide tools to automatically detect which images are optimal, based on the standards of each retailer or brand. You can check if a certain category is performing poorly because of low-quality images and make the presentation more exciting.

5. Facilitate the customer journey

What are the steps that your potential buyer takes before making a purchase? Whether the customer starts browsing on a smartphone, a tablet or on your online website, you should maintain consistency across channels, enabling you to offer a strong and enjoyable omnichannel experience. Follow your customers’ footsteps across channels and determine which categories were visited at each location. Based on this data, create special personalized offers on products in categories that are the most popular, and provide incentives in categories that are less popular in certain channels.

Want to learn more about how category level insights can boost your sales? Click here.