Understanding Complexity in Large Catalogues
I Imagine all the best things in life are a little bit complicated. A good relationship, an action film and an online catalogue. Sort of. And by āa little bitā, I mean a lot.
In our current online spaces, there is a need for large catalogue websites. We want to offer as much as we can to as many people as possible, because why not. We know what happens when we let this go unchecked and uncontrolled, and it can turn into chaos very quickly. Think endless scrolling and getting lost in a sea of content with no way to differentiate one from the other.
You see the same 5 items on every page and youāre not sure how or why but itās too late now because youāve already forgotten what you were looking for in the first place. But if itās so easy to fall into this trap, how do we avoid it. I think at its core, itās about acknowledging that you have a large catalogue and finding a way to embrace it without overwhelming your users (and yourself). The goal is to tame this complexity by making it seem simple and manageable.
Itās probably not, but there are ways of making your customers feel like theyāre not drowning in unnecessary content. Now donāt get me wrong ā an inventory of hundreds and thousands is not a bad thing. It can kind of be quite attractive to some customers to know that you offer so much.
But the second they feel lost or annoyed by how much work it is to just get to something relevant, theyāll leave and never come back.
The Importance of Simplification
People crave simplicity. Yet, we're always one bad decision away from total chaos. If you've ever watched a market or a city at rush hour, you'll know that even in our most advanced times, we tend to overcomplicate the most basic processes.
Often under the guise of productivity and efficiency. But nothing kills your ambition quite like coming up against a giant, multi-layered system that appears to be doing everything for everyone but somehow doesn't get you from A to B without wanting to rip your hair out. We've all been there - overwhelmed by bureaucracy and redundancies, and left wanting. With small teams especially, simplifying big catalogues is how you survive and thrive.
There is great value in being able to explain an entire programme or process in under a minute. More or less. It keeps you focused on your goal and brings more accountability when you're not bogged down with pointless questions. What you lose in details, you gain in clarity.
Instead of repeating tasks or spending hours talking about which task should be performed by whom and when, your team just gets down to it. Not only do you have great days, but you're also more productive (that word again) without needing excessive resources. No back-and-forths, just getting things done. Sort of.
I'm not saying details aren't important at all - only that if they're pulling your teams away from a good life, then something's off about your work-life balance anyway.
Key Strategies for Streamlining Catalogues
Iāve noticed a lot of brands end up overcomplicating their catalogues because they want to offer customers the best. Thereās nothing wrong with that - and I do love an over-the-top collection every now and then, but itās really not sustainable, is it. Streamlining is all about ensuring you donāt have to compromise on your vision while being able to run a healthy business.
The first step to simplification is understanding. Itās not only about what you want as a brand, but about what the customer expects as well. Take a look at data - what are they buying.
What arenāt they buying. This will help you identify what products are redundant or products that could be introduced. Thereās also a lot to be said about providing some level of customisation on made-to-order items, or grouping products according to certain themes or seasons. If youāre thinking of the long-term impact, Iād say that brand transparency and documentation play a key role in helping streamline catalogues.
You canāt expect customers to provide accurate feedback if they donāt know what your brand is doing. Use digital tools to keep everyone up-to-date on everything your brand stands for - from its sustainability practices to its collection launches. Ultimately, while Iām all for simplifying catalogues for more impact, I must admit there are certain instances when an elaborate catalogue works well.
This could be during special launches or anniversary collections or if your brand caters exclusively to haute couture for instance. The way I see it, but all in all, i think the āless is moreā approach works well for most fashion brands.
Implementing Effective Categorization
There are a lot of things to consider when youāre organising your catalogue. You need to include all the relevant products, use words that everyone understands, and give customers a way to find products that is logical. I mean I know what an LBD is and a BOB (black-on-black), but if your intended customer doesnāt, youāll need categories that are clear. Thereās nothing that will make your customers feel more like outsiders than insider knowledge only a few know about ā so donāt do it.
Talk to them in their language, not yours. Know who youāre selling to and use their words, then create categories from there. When you organise your catalogue, you need to make sure that customers know exactly what theyāll find in each category.
List every product in one category only. Sometimes it feels like certain garments fit into more than one bucket; in such situations pick the most obvious one.
Itās tempting sometimes for brands to leave product categorisation up to customers by putting it under more than one category - but that makes for a very confusing user experience. It takes some thought - for sure - and occasionally more opinions than just yours as well as a bit of time but getting this right makes shopping on your website so much easier for the customer. Yes, an item may technically fit into two buckets, but they should be able to tell which bucket it fits into best based on its description or keywords - where available - anyway.
Leveraging Technology for Simplification
Itās easier to talk about tech than do it, I think. ChatGPT or AI keep popping up in every conversation about simplifying cataloguing for large brands. I do agree - the first layer of simplification can come from technology and tools. Brands can find software suites that work for them and use these to make sorting and tagging much easier, which can make the process of large-scale cataloguing much more streamlined.
Digital cataloguing tools can help designers, creative directors, production teams, merchandisers and other teams find a shared workflow that they can all participate in remotely. It seems like in this way - technology is extremely helpful when weāre talking about simplifying cataloguing. But technology has limitations.
It cannot replace any of those stakeholders. It seems like and if there is a lack of consensus around what is being catalogued - tech will probably only make things worse with excess data and output. The way I see it, being selective about what part of the design and curation process you automate with tech can be critical to whether or not your process is kind of truly simple or a complex maze that no one understands but your it team.
Like most things, the solution isnāt singular either. While brands often look to technology for solutions, they must also consider how their organisational processes are built, which silos exist between departments, who is a part of the decision-making process and how they align on different issues. All these non-technology-related factors play a huge role in deciding whether your use of tech is making things simpler or not.
Sort of.
Measuring the Impact of Simplification Efforts
Thereās this funny thing that happens when a brand decides to tame its complexity. Thereās almost this collective sense of relief, as if everyone was too polite to point out they were drowning in their own choices. I think thereās something rather dignified in saying āletās cut back, but with precisionā, which makes the eventual impact of these simplification efforts stand out - starkly.
Letās be clear, impact is not one-dimensional - it almost never is. It can be measured against market outcomes or customer satisfaction or improved sales; whatever youāre hoping to achieve should determine how you measure impact. This way, your approach isnāt fragmented and youāre not going down a rabbit hole that looks like a measurement exercise. There are short-term indicators of success and there are long-term ones too; knowing which one to focus on will help you stay on track.
Thereās also something interesting about timeframes and measurement intervals because weāve become used to instant gratification through technology and all sorts of new ways to sell things online. Sort of. For some, measuring the time it takes for a user to purchase a product (from the moment they click a link) is enough; for others, looking at shifts in social sentiment after one month is enough; others still look at review data across months (even years) before deciding if the simplification efforts were worth it. What often goes unnoticed is occasionally the fact that most brands rarely focus on asking users what they want (youād think theyād do more of that.
). This means any attempts at simplification are kind of often developed based on internal factors like cost, seasonality, planning, and compliance standards (which makes sense from an operations perspective). The fact remains though that even the act of simplifying something could leave users feeling a bit disconnected - especially if all their favourite products suddenly disappear from a website.