Boost Your Sales with Expert Product Catalogue Management and Merchandising [Complete Guide]

Product merchandising, in the context of e-commerce, refers to the strategies and methods you can use to present the products in your online store in such a way as to increase their appeal to your customers and increase the likelihood of making a sale.

In both brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce stores, effective merchandising aims to create an engaging and seamless shopping experience that smoothly moves customers toward their purchases.

Check out this article to learn how to add a product to your CloudCart store. Now let's continue with...

The most important areas of effective product merchandising

Here are some key aspects of product merchandising for e-commerce:

Product images

High-quality product images, shot from different angles, with zoom capability, help customers see clearly what they are buying. Images of products in real-world environments or videos that show how products are used can also enhance the shopping experience (aka "lifestyle product photography"). In this article you can see the steps you need to take to upload your photos. And if you want to hire an experienced photographer, do it through our Growth Ecosystem.‍

Expert advice:

‍The use of 360° photos has become increasingly popular in recent years. You can add this type of photos to your CloudCart, see this link for a detailed guide.

Product descriptions

Detailed and informative product descriptions provide customers with basic information on features, specifications, dimensions, materials and more. Clear and concise descriptions help customers make informed decisions.

In descriptions, besides customer care, you should also think about SEO (search engine optimization). In order to be as effective as possible in this area, we have created our SEO Spinner for your descriptions and titles - a tool that allows you to automate SEO tasks for your store.

Product categorization and filtering

Organizing products into relevant categories and subcategories makes it easier for customers to navigate your online store. Implementing filtering options based on attributes such as size, color, price range and more allows customers to sharpen search results.

CloudCart allows you to fully customize the filters, look, and layout of the product catalog in your online store. When a visitor to your store opens a product category or section that includes all the products in your store, it's important for them to see information that they can easily filter to find what they're looking to buy. See how to set up your product catalog in this article.

Creating product categories - varieties, characteristics, taxonomies

Categories are an easy way to organize and group your products. A well-contained and easy-to-use store is a must-have that helps convert visitors into customers and sell more products. In this article in our Help Center, we have shown you how to create your categories. In this article, you can learn how to create product variations.

You can also create product features for each category.

You may be asking yourself - what is the difference between Variants and Characteristics?

Variants: determine the specific product. When the product has a variant, the customer must select his preferred variant from those presented. /color, size, etc./. Here you can read more about the product varieties in your shop. In addition, you can add varieties to your CloudCart store by importing a CSV file.

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Characteristics: This is characterization information (there is no option to choose, it simply characterizes/describes the product and is assigned to the category). These types of characteristics are displayed in the filter in the product catalog.

Expert advice:

‍With product categories, you can also create so-called "taxonomies". These are important for integration with other services, even for different online advertising platforms (e.g. Facebook Ads). Click on this link to learn how to create your taxonomies.

Filter, search, and manage products

New online marketers often underestimate the importance of this type of functionality, but it's crucial for your potential customers' optimal user experience. In the CloudCart store, you can easily set up product filtering and product categories, see how it works in this article.

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Add a manufacturer

When you include information about product manufacturers in your store, you help your customers better navigate your product catalog. Information about the manufacturers of different items is important for the customer when making their choice. In addition, by adding manufacturers to your store, they can easily filter and find the products they want.

Add and manage product options

With the product options app in your CloudCart store, you can set up different types of options visible to the end customer and which you can apply to a specific product, category, or brand.

Statuses of products

Each product in your CloudCart store can be assigned a specific status - available, out of stock, coming soon, and more. Product statuses are extremely useful, as they provide users with the necessary information about the products you offer in your store and stimulate them to take specific actions.

In your CloudCart store, you can easily set different statuses for each individual product, depending on the quantity available, or apply global statuses for all products. These statuses determine if a product can be purchased by the customer or, if it is out of stock, gives the customer the option to send a request to the store.

Similar (Related) Products

Matching products is a very useful functionality that can increase the average order value in your online store. A basic rule of thumb for how you market your products is that the strategy should spark consumer interest and get customers to browse as many items as possible from your store's product catalogue. In this article, you can learn how to set up similar products in your CloudCart store.

Collections

The creation of collections is the most convenient method of bringing together different types of products in a common context. These collections are especially useful when creating promotions because you avoid having to go into the settings of each individual product to change its features.

Through our collection creation and management functionality, we give you the ability to group products that are different from others and from each other, but have something in common - for example, a current promotion! This makes managing product collections much easier.

Use this feature to speed up your store management efforts.

Learn how you can run your store more efficiently and sell more by utilizing product collections.

‍Creating Linked Products

Linked Products is a functionality that allows you to show your customers products from the same series, collection, or products that complement each other in a relevant way. These products will be featured on the specific product details page.

By displaying Related Products, you have the opportunity to increase the average purchase value in your online store.

Expert tip:

In CloudCart, Linked Products can be added both manually and by using the API.

Creation of product bundles

An excellent way to increase store turnover (and AOV - average order value) is the use of product bundles, also known simply as "bundles". To learn all the necessary steps for creating and managing product bundles, check out this article.

Product bundles will help you implement different marketing strategies for your customers and increase your sales by offering them, for example, discounts on relevant products that are more profitable bought together than bought separately.

Expert advice:‍

To be successful with product bundles, in addition to setting up bundles with ease, you need to strategically select the right products. In this article you can learn more about selecting core and complementary products.

Reviews and Social Proof

Sharing product reviews shared on social media as well as user-generated content can improve the perceived value of products. For this purpose, you have at your disposal an excellent app through which you can request reviews from your customers who have purchased a product or used a service from your store.

Advanced tip:

Make sure that your product have at least a few reviews otherwise you risk losing the trust of your store's visitors.

Promotions and discounts

Drawing attention to current promotions, discounts and special offers in your CloudCart store is essential to its success. Draw attention to promotions to create a sense of urgency and motivate more customers to buy. See here for more information on setting up discounts in CloudCart.

Search bar (search engine)

Using an effective search engine with detailed filters helps customers find products quickly, improving their user experience with the store. When using the CloudCart search engine, users enter the desired word(s), which are sent to a script on the web search engine server, where the index database is queried for searches that contain one or more of the keywords the user entered.

Expert advice:

A well-built search bar that offers the right recommendations is a must for your store, if you want to have high conversion rates.

Managing your product catalog correctly - an essential task

Merchandising your online store involves a mix of visual design, user experience, data analysis, and understanding consumer psychology. You need to optimize all of these areas if you want to create an online store that motivates users to browse products with interest, engages them, and most importantly - converts visitors into customers. 

For this to happen, we have made sure you have everything you need in your CloudCart store, and all the information in our Help Center so you can learn how to use all of the product merchandising features of our platform to their full potential.