Product Catalogue
Definition
A catalogue is a reference work. Buyers arrive knowing roughly what they want and need to confirm a part number, a dimension, a finish or a compatibility before they order. The structure follows from that: categories, then products, then a consistent block of attributes for each one, with a product code that survives redesigns. Trade catalogues often run to hundreds of pages and are reissued annually; a web catalogue is usually a set of pages generated from a spreadsheet or a stock system. Published as static files, a catalogue is a browsing and reference tool rather than a shop — it can show everything and link out to an order process, but it cannot take a payment on its own.
Why It Matters
The catalogue is where sales queries either stop or start. A buyer who finds the specification rings to order; one who cannot rings to ask, and that call costs somebody twenty minutes. Accuracy has a direct price too, since a wrong dimension produces returns and returns in trade supply are expensive to process. The other recurring cost is weight. A 180 MB print file put on the website unchanged is a download most buyers will never finish, and the ones standing on a site with patchy signal give up on it immediately.
How It Works
Keep the source of truth in one place — a spreadsheet, or whatever system the stock lives in — and generate the published catalogue from it instead of editing a layout by hand. Export images at the size they will actually be displayed, in WebP or compressed JPEG, and switch on lazy loading so pictures below the fold do not hold up the first screen. Give each product a stable address derived from its code, so a link to one item survives the next revision. Where prices move more often than the rest of the content, split them out into a separate price list rather than reissuing everything. Republish to the same addresses so that printed codes and old emails keep working.
Real-World Example
A fixings supplier generates 340 product pages from a spreadsheet and publishes the folder at one address on 99helpers, with a 12 MB catalogue file alongside it for customers who want something offline. A contractor scans the code on a shelf label, lands on the page for that part and reads the thread pitch without ringing the trade counter. When the range changes in spring, the supplier republishes the generated folder to the same address, and the shelf labels do not need reprinting.
Common Mistakes
- ✕Publishing only the print file — it is heavy, it cannot be linked to at product level, and it is close to unusable on the phone the buyer is actually holding
- ✕Changing product codes during a redesign — every saved link, purchase order and shelf label now refers to something that no longer exists
- ✕Baking prices into the catalogue pages — a price change then means regenerating and republishing the whole thing instead of one small file
Related Terms
Price List
A price list is the document that states what each thing costs. It is short, it changes often, and it is the page customers check before they pick up the phone.
Digital Menu
A digital menu is a restaurant, cafe or bar menu published as a web page and usually reached by scanning a code on the table. It replaces reprinting every time something changes.
Lazy Loading
Lazy loading defers fetching an image or iframe until the visitor is close to scrolling it into view, so only what is actually looked at gets downloaded. In a browser it is one attribute: loading set to lazy.
Image Optimization
Image optimisation is the work of making the pictures on a page as small as they can be without a visible drop in quality. In practice it means resizing, choosing a format, setting a compression level and serving the right file to each device.
WebP File
WebP is an image format from Google that handles lossy and lossless compression, transparency and animation in one file. At comparable visual quality it is typically 25 to 35 percent smaller than JPEG.
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