Understanding the Challenges of Large Catalogues
Why are large e-commerce catalogues such a headache to handle. The way I see it, it seems like any sort of large e-commerce business is always on the hunt for a new-fangled solution to balance both performance and scale - which is tricky. I think it's because as the size of your business increases, customers also expect better experiences, more streamlined operations and a frictionless experience.
On top of that, you also have so much more riding on things going well - with a large catalogue, you have a lot to lose when things go sideways. Inventory management is becoming more complex than before with so many supply chain disruptions and rising demand for accurate product listings at record speed.
There are so many additional moving parts to keep in mind here as well such as pricing, vendors and tracking everything effectively. It feels like there's barely any room for error as well. Not only do you have to make sure you're still delivering high-quality images and detailed listings, but you're also having to consider keeping the website running at peak performance to prevent bounce rates from increasing.
Quite often, I hear people talking about how their e-commerce sites start running much slower once they cross 10,000+ products and it does appear that this is fairly common across platforms. But there are ways around that if you can plan ahead and streamline some of your processes. Even if you don't do all of these straight away - sometimes it's just not possible - there are some things you can do today that will help you out in the long run such as picking the right content management system for your needs or setting up effective product description templates so your merchandising team isn't caught out when it's time to expand.
Optimizing Database Queries for Speed
Ever wondered why some catalogues load in a blink and others take so long you could, well, make yourself a cup of tea. It’s all about how you interrogate the database. I’ve noticed that the key is to ask for what you want and only what you want.
Sort of like ordering from a menu. You wouldn’t order everything on it, would you. I find that before launching an eCommerce platform, there are presumably a few basics one should check.
One of them is a bit the indexing strategy used for various data in your tables. If you’ve missed out on creating indexes that match the kind of queries you plan to execute, this could turn into a bottleneck later.
Some store owners like to offer up custom features - such as allowing customers to filter by size or price range or both. If filters are necessary, then doing these database queries correctly becomes very important.
Some catalogue systems use stored procedures instead of writing queries every time and sometimes this can help as well. Rather than getting chatty with your database every time (because let’s face it, this can get expensive), looking at your queries to see if they’re relevant or repetitive could also help speed things up. A common query mistake I see is often asking for too much information in one go when building a catalogue page - product images and names should suffice instead of loading attributes and SKUs before showing each item to customers.
You could load additional details when someone clicks into a product as opposed to when they’re browsing hundreds per page. And lastly, I find reducing joins between tables when possible helps too.
Implementing Caching Strategies
Is your slow online store starting to feel a little like dial-up internet. Maybe it’s time to have a good long look at using caches to speed things up. Caching stores recent requests and content like static images so users don’t have to wait for it to load again.
This means the next time they visit, everything loads faster. It saves valuable bandwidth and makes websites more responsive. But when not implemented right, caching can quite a bit give users outdated or stale information.
There are a number of different types of caching mechanisms out there including browser cache, content delivery network cache, distributed cache, and object cache. Implementing these can allegedly be a bit tricky because you don’t want users to see the same thing over and over again even when your catalogue gets updated, or say, during a campaign when you’re giving limited time offers or discounts. That’s where customising your cache comes into play. It’s important that at least some of your newer content loads first so that shoppers don’t miss out on limited-time sales or new products.
You also want older content to load in the background as your customer continues browsing the site in search of their favourite items. The best way to do this is by customising caching plugins so that only certain parts of your catalogue are cached while others remain dynamic. Caching is pretty much just one part of building a good catalogue website because there are several things you need to consider such as configuration, priorities and even how frequently certain sections get updated.
There is no single fix solution but integrating this feature into an online store helps improve speeds and keeps shoppers happy while ensuring that you don’t lose out on potential customers due to poor performance.
Utilizing Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Have you ever tried to shop online during a holiday sale, only to find the site crawling at a snail’s pace. It’s sort of like waiting for your toast to pop in the morning - except this is the internet, and it should be faster than that, shouldn’t it. Site performance matters more than ever, especially for stores with those mammoth catalogues we’ve all become so fond of scrolling through.
Content Delivery Networks - or CDNs if you want the short version - are basically a very clever way of making sure the pictures and pages you want to see load quickly, wherever you are. You see, when your store has thousands of products and dozens of categories, everything can start to take a while to load.
Images can nearly always drag behind, text can pop up later than it’s supposed to, and as a result, your customers get frustrated. The way I see it, cdn is like hiring extra delivery drivers who already live in places all over the world; each has your catalogue images and assets on hand. This ensures when someone clicks, let’s say, a jacket from your collection, all the necessary content pops up in seconds - sometimes less.
But it’s not as much about serving images as it is about serving them quickly. A CDN is rather effective because instead of fetching content from your central web server every single time - which could physically be on the other side of the planet from some users - it fetches them from a “node” nearby. It seems like the chances of lag or latency go down significantly and what you get is a seamless experience where no one has to wait long enough to lose interest in your products.
It might sound daunting but integrating a CDN into your ecommerce backend is rather straightforward these days. Most major platforms have plugins or partnerships with CDN providers making it slightly easier for retailers with large catalogues to deliver content efficiently.
Streamlining User Interface for Better Navigation
Ever landed on a new site and felt lost. You’re not alone. It seems like something which still catches my attention is just how fiddly websites can be these days.
It seems like i doubt the main problem seems to be a sort of lack of balance in how the catalogue is organised. Navigation tends to go by the wayside and websites take on an all-too-corporate shopping-mall-esque interior. And that’s not ideal, because if you’re going to engage customers you want it to feel homey - not a maze. The way I see it, i think the best possible way to address this problem is having an easy navigation structure.
No two ways about it. When things are separated clearly, it gives users a sense of comfort, order and control - as if their decisions really matter. This boosts conversion rates too, which means less money spent on ‘persuading’ people to shop.
A very good return on investment and one that goes beyond making things look pretty for your next Shopify audit. A simple navigation bar does it all. Intuitive links, smooth scrolling, visible branding - all great for keeping site interactions smooth and quick.
Sort of. A clean navigation structure means users can easily identify what products are in what category without much effort. More or less.
Not only that, but when they know exactly where everything is, they will keep coming back again and again to shop with you. Sort of.
Regular Maintenance and Performance Monitoring
Why do so many brands have a wardrobe full of cutting-edge performance tools, but zero regular maintenance. A bit like owning a luxury car and never getting the oil changed. Or updating your wardrobe for every season, then never laundering your clothes.
I Assume yes, you’ve got new things to use, but unless you keep things running smoothly, they’re pointless. If your catalogue is going to be used frequently or if it is especially large, you need to keep it humming along. More or less. You’ll need to keep an eye on how it’s doing and make necessary adjustments regularly.
Rather like an engine that needs an oil change every once in a while to stay in good shape. It might seem boring at first - but with time, you’ll see why it makes sense to check on your catalogue every now and then.
For example - some tags or categories might be less effective over time than others. Or there could be products on the site that don’t have enough attributes or descriptions listed out. These are tiny things that can make a huge difference for the user (and for search engines). Periodic audits can help you find these errors and fix them before they become massive problems.
The way I see it, a popular method of auditing is keeping track of what’s out of stock as soon as possible (without removing the product page). This sort of allows users to sign up for updates if a product is back in stock - which creates positive experiences overall. Another way of monitoring performance is seeing which products are popular with which segments of your audience and surfacing related recommendations accordingly. Of course, the best way to maintain a catalogue is by working with those who know exactly how things work - there are even specialists dedicated to just this.
Sort of. If you’d rather do things yourself - there are plenty of tools that can help with various aspects of maintenance and optimisation, right from small plugins to larger tools.