Product Catalog Best Practices

An accurate, up-to-date, and visible product catalog helps your brand maximize sales, build strong partnerships, and avoid costly errors like duplicates or outdated data that could lead to lost opportunities. To support this, your goal should be to create and maintain an excellent product catalog. This article covers the key do’s and don’ts to keep your catalog accurate, current, and visible to partners, helping you prevent mistakes that could impact your business.

Product catalog do's

Below is a list of best practices you should follow to create high-quality product catalogs, with guidance tailored to key fields and functional areas. These recommendations will help ensure your catalog data is accurate, complete, and optimized for visibility and performance on the Product Marketplace.

Complete all critical fields accurately

To appear and perform well on the Product Marketplace, your catalog must include accurate and complete data in these key fields:

Warning: Avoid placeholders like “TBD” or “N/A”, inconsistent formatting, and empty critical fields.

Field	Requirement	Best practice	Benefit
CatalogItemId	Mandatory	Enter the unique identifier for the item within the catalog, such as a SKU.	Helps you prevent duplicate records, support reliable updates, and simplify troubleshooting.
Product Name	Mandatory	Use clear, specific names so your products are easy to find in search results, such as Men’s Running Shoes—Blue, Size 10.	Helps you improve search accuracy and sales.
Product URL	Mandatory	Use a valid URL that leads to a live product page.	Helps you send traffic to the correct page and reduce bounce rates.
GTIN / MPN / EAN / ASIN	Strongly recommended	Provide valid, unique identifiers for deduplication and compatibility.	Helps you improve product matching across platforms and prevent duplicates.
Manufacturer	Strongly recommended	Include the full brand or manufacturer name for better search and filtering.	Helps you improve search results and brand-specific filtering.
Image URL	Strongly recommended	Use high-resolution images hosted on reliable servers.	Helps you build trust and improve click-through and conversion rates.
Stock Availability	Strongly recommended	Include the product availability status, such as InStock, OutOfStock, BackOrder, PreOrder, or LimitedAvailability.	Helps you avoid promoting unavailable items and show accurate availability.
Price (Original/Current)	Strongly recommended	Include both values when applicable, especially for discounted items.	Helps you show value clearly and avoid pricing confusion.
Description	Strongly recommended	Provide meaningful, concise product descriptions.	Helps you give partners and shoppers the context they need.
Category	Strongly recommended	Use consistent, clear product categories so your products appear in the right category.	Helps you appear in relevant searches and category views.
Is Parent	Strongly recommended	Indicate whether the SKU is the parent for a set of variants.	Helps you group variants correctly and improve browsing.
Parent Sku	Strongly recommended	If the product is a variant, enter the SKU of its parent product.	Helps you connect each variant to the correct parent product.
Currency	Strongly recommended	Include the 3-digit ISO 4217 currency code for the product price.	Helps you display prices correctly and avoid regional pricing errors.

Handle variants and avoid duplicates

• List each product variant (size, color, etc.) as a separate line with its own unique ID, image, and price.

• Use a shared Parent ID for related variants where applicable.

• Review health reports regularly to identify and fix duplicate entries, as only the first instance will be displayed.

Maintain manufacturer and brand data quality

• Use consistent naming conventions (e.g., always “Nike,” never “Nike Inc.”).

• Complete manufacturer fields to enhance search accuracy and data deduplication.

Keep catalogs updated regularly

• Update your catalog with fresh data to reflect current prices, stock, and product info.

• Catalogs not updated in the last 12 months risk closure after 30 days unless an exception is granted.

Fix errors and monitor catalog health

• Address all reported errors, warnings, and duplicate entries promptly to ensure your catalogs remain accurate and fully functional. Learn more about File Formats for Product Catalogs.

Map custom fields properly

• For custom catalogs, ensure all fields map correctly to the standard catalog format to avoid missing product info for partners.

Product catalog don'ts

Below is a list of common mistakes to avoid when creating product catalogs, highlighting key fields and functional areas where errors frequently occur. Ignoring these guidelines can lead to inaccurate, incomplete, and poorly optimized catalog data, negatively impacting visibility and performance on the Product Marketplace.

Don’t leave critical fields blank or use placeholders

• Missing or placeholder values block product visibility and reduce partner engagement.

Don’t let catalogs remain in an error state

• Catalogs with unresolved errors for over 30 days may be closed but can be reopened after fixes.

Don’t ignore outdated catalogs

• Catalogs not updated in the last 12 months will be closed after 30 days unless updated or otherwise instructed.

Don’t allow duplicate entries to persist

• Duplicates clutter the marketplace and reduce visibility; only the first duplicate is shown.

Don’t skip mapping for custom fields

• Unmapped custom fields limit product data visibility for your partners.

Don’t leave optional but valuable fields empty

• Fields like product description and category help partners find your products and improve the overall experience.

Additional resources

Below are additional resources to help you with specific aspects of managing your product catalog. Each article complements different parts of this best practices guide to resolve issues, optimize your catalog, and maintain data quality.

• File Formats for Product Catalogs — Understand acceptable file formats and prepare your catalog files correctly. Use this before you submit a catalog.

• Add Product Catalogs as a Brand — Follow step-by-step instructions to submit a catalog under your brand account. Use this to get started correctly.

• Troubleshoot Product Catalog Errors & Warnings — Diagnose and fix common errors, warnings, and duplicates. Use this to keep your catalog healthy and visible.

• Manage & View Uploaded Product Catalogs — Update, maintain, and organize your catalogs after upload. Use this to keep your data current.

• Create & Manage Product Catalog Rules — Customize catalog rules to handle variants, avoid duplicates, and optimize data display.