Do Resellers Use just One Catalog to run their Online Business

It is a myth that resellers, no matter what they are selling use just one type of catalog to manage their ecommerce business. Usually, a reseller strikes a business deal with one or two distributors and buys products whenever an order is placed on his store. In most cases, the order is forwarded to the distributor who takes the responsibility of shipping and delivering the order to the customer.

Resellers that do business by buying products from distributors, use a catalog commonly referred to as Aggregated catalog. As a reseller, if you are dependent on multiple distributors for inventory, it is advised to use an Aggregated product catalog.

What is Aggregated Catalog?

As the name implies, you are essentially combining multiple catalogs to create a single well-structured, easily viewable catalog. The catalog gives you the opportunity to access and view products coming from multiple distributors.

If you don’t have an aggregated catalog then it becomes really difficult to manage your multiple catalogs. In simple words, Ecommerce catalog management becomes tedious. Consider this: You are connected to three distributors, say Ingram Micro, Synnex and Tech Data. Now, if your customer requests a quote of specific products, you will have to browse through each of the 3 catalogs to find the best price that helps to maximize your profit margin.

With no aggregated catalog, you will have a hard time comparing the price of the same product that is available from multiple distributors. So every time you get a RFQ, quoting it can be arduous. However, with this catalog you have a single-window view of all product information. This makes it very easy to analyze price variations between different distributors.

When to Use Custom Catalog?

Custom catalog comes into picture when you are selling products that are not available with any distributors. There are a few resellers who have not partnered with any distributors and do business by selling their own products. They keep a track of such products by designing a catalog, commonly referred to as custom catalog.

When products are not coming from any distributors, there is absolutely no need to use an aggregated catalog. There is just one single custom catalog that will have all the products that are manufactured from your organizations. In most cases, the catalog is used for custom solutions. Customizations, installation and other services are also included in custom catalog.

Many resellers actually create custom products from the products available from distributors. For instance, they may group products from different distributors and sell it as a bundle. To simply the process of managing this catalog, a Custom catalog management software is often adopted.

When Contract Catalog is required?

Government customers have unique procurement requests, hence products that are available under government contracts, have a catalog commonly referred to as contract catalog. There are various government contracts such as SEWP, FirstSource, Eagle, Netcents, GSA Schedules etc. Now resellers who have bagged any of these contracts will always use contract catalog. A Contract catalog management software is often required to manage these government contracts efficiently.

Arnaldo is content contributor wrote article on VAR business management, eCommerce, B2B business and trending topics.