How can you create an effective product catalogue using PIM?
7 November 2025
Every year, or even every season, it’s much the same routine: finalising the layout, gathering information, writing the copy, checking prices, sourcing suitable photos, managing the page layout, going back and forth with the design team… Creating a catalogue that brings together all your products is a highly stressful process. You need to get it out quickly whilst ensuring the information is as accurate as possible and leaves no room for errors or typos. All this whilst keeping the various stakeholders happy – a task that can sometimes be difficult to manage.
We’ll guide you through this challenging process with our advice.
Why create a product catalogue for e-commerce?
But actually, in a hyper-digitalised world, is there still any point in creating a printed product catalogue? The answer is yes! Whilst the product catalogue may suffer from a rather old-fashioned image in the eyes of some, it remains an important channel and communication tool for many brands across a wide range of sectors and industries: tourism, furniture, ready-to-wear, DIY… particularly in B2B but also in B2C.
As well as its ability to create a physical connection between the company and the customer, it allows the customer to immerse themselves in the brand’s world by stimulating several of their senses in a way that digital media cannot. Furthermore, creating an effective product catalogue makes it easier to visualise the various products by bringing them together in one place, whilst offering the possibility of grouping them within distinct themes.
For example, it is possible to present furniture by product type or by room, offering interior design ideas for different rooms in the home that will further inspire the customer. The catalogue is then used as a reference guide, and customers can return to it as often as they like. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see customers arrive in-store with the product catalogue under their arm to buy the item they have spotted in it.
Furthermore, it can also be used by sales teams, particularly in the B2B sector, to present their products during a client meeting. If the pricing strategy is likely to evolve or vary depending on the customer in question, then it is sufficient to provide a price-free catalogue accompanied by a separate price list.
Finally, print is not the enemy of digital: the creation of a product catalogue can easily be digitised and/or showcased in different ways across digital channels. Interactive catalogues, home printing, the integration of QR codes or augmented reality, personalisation…
The possibilities are endless. For example, one e-commerce site used data to create a catalogue fully personalised to the preferences of its most loyal customers. Guaranteed impact!
Preparing to create your product catalogue with PIM
The first step in creating your product catalogue efficiently is therefore to think carefully in advance about who it is aimed at and how both the recipients and your own teams will use it. The preparation will vary depending on the intended use. For example, it is not uncommon to see catalogues without prices in B2B, whereas this is hardly conceivable in B2C. This is therefore a crucial and priority step in managing your sales catalogue(s).
Once your strategy is in place, the next step is to choose the theme – if applicable – and the products to include in the catalogue. Once the layout is finalised, it’s time for the creative work! At the same time, you’ll need to centralise the necessary information (product descriptions, prices, dimensions, technical details, etc.) and draft the copy.
This is where PIM (Product Information Management) software will be of great assistance in your sales processes, as you will already have all this information collated in a single database.
This will also facilitate collaboration and workflows between different teams, as the PIM is accessible directly online and updates data in real time. Your high-definition photos can be integrated by the creative team or graphic designer whilst the product team works on the copy and pages, and the content team proofreads them.
Finally, you’ll be able to categorise and classify your products by type, theme, season and other predefined criteria as required. This allows you to create the various catalogue entries directly within the PIM platform.
Is your catalogue ready? All that remains is to link the PIM solution to your catalogue template. The text is positioned, the cover appears, the pages take shape, the images are automatically resized, and the magic happens! Need to make a change? Simply update the information in the PIM and it will be corrected in future print runs and publications of your catalogue. Your product catalogue is therefore always up to date.
Don’t have a pre-designed catalogue layout or template? Quable PIM can help you create bespoke templates generated directly from the PIM software.
Conclusion
Nowadays, product catalogue creation must be designed to integrate fully into an omnichannel journey, whether in-store or online. This critical phase in the work of marketing and product teams must be planned for and streamlined in order to reduce time-to-market and improve data reliability and consistency. The PIM platform is the only solution that allows you to generate a catalogue in just a few clicks, whilst improving the quality of your data, its visual presentation and the operational efficiency of your teams. This makes creating your product catalogue a breeze.