It is no secret that the rise of the Internet had a profound change on global society, especially in a tech-heavy nation like the United States, and this affects personal communication, media, sharing ideas, art, and in the business world, online shopping. Digital retail has exploded in the last two decades or so, and the trend may even be accelerating during the 2010s. Grocery shopping is no exception. In 2017, 22% of surveyed U.S. consumers said that they bought groceries online, and that jumped to 36% the following year. Clearly, online retailers need an inventory management system, clear product attributes online, and a catalog content management system that can keep up with this huge demand.

Catalog Marketing

Selling a product is about more than good manufacturing or discount sales. A business may hire an intermediary, a catalog marketing company, to help out. This company acts as a catalog content management system, and according to Chron, such an online catalog allows consumers to sort items by price, category, manufacturer, or anything else, and this software also involves digital payment methods and a virtual shopping cart to hold all ordered items. Or, if a company has a very large inventory and has its own department with a catalog content management system. Smaller companies, or those with a more limited inventory, can make use of catalog marketers. A catalog marketing team knows to make the catalog itself attractive, with high-quality photos, clear and informative product descriptions, and anything that can make the seller’s particular inventory and content stand out from the competition. Structured data and product content management makes navigating the catalog fast and intuitive, and any digital shelf will soon be in reach for the buyer.

Big Business

Commerce in the United States is massive, and online markets are working to keep up. Images, in particular, are an essential component for an effective catalog content management system. After all, users of e-commerce sites want to be able to zoom in on product images, and 70% of consumers rank it among the most important priorities. Similarly, around 66% of consumers in general want to view at least three images of an item before purchasing it, and around 47% of American consumers consider high-quality images a deciding factor whenever they buy something from a brand verified product. And overall, the consumer packaged goods industry is worth $2 trillion in the United States, and commerce performed on mobile phones, tablets, and similar devices now makes up 30% of that commercial power. Product catalog software has a lot of material to juggle, from high-quality images to good product descriptions to keeping all information and inventory up-to-date for today’s fast-paced and choosy consumer crowd.

Consumers are picky, but there are more ways to reach them. Social media, for example, has proven itself a communication powerhouse for anything from advertising to politics to public debate, and e-commerce is no exception. Sellers big and small, from Best Buy and Target to small pastry shops, can use platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to expand awareness of their products and recent deals and savings. Tweets are fast, convenient bites of information that many technology users are comfortable with, and if a hot new brand of items enters a seller’s inventory, a tweet can reach out to many interested people. Companies of all types can create their own Facebook pages, which can contain backlinks to the company site as well as make public posts about deals and new items. This can act as a casual, ad-based catalog content management system to supplement a more dedicated database that consumers can visit and make purchases from. Some sellers even provide home delivery options for food products, boosting convenience and therefore desirability.