Why keeping your catalog current is important on Faire, and tools to help you do it

This year, you’ve heard us talk about our focus on bringing more retailers to the Faire platform; it remains our 2024 north star and creates opportunities for all of our brands to grow and thrive. One of the key things that draws retailers to Faire is the incredible selection of products that brands like you bring to the platform, but lately, we’ve been hearing from retailers that the products they want are not listed on Faire. We hope that this article helps you understand why listing your full catalog on Faire is important and that you leave with a better understanding of the tools to make managing your catalog easier.

First of all, why does having a complete catalog matter?

Get discovered more often. Listing your full catalog increases your chance of showing up in more search results, putting you in front of even more retailers. Our data tells us that brands that offer their full assortment of products often see more sales than those that offer a curated or partial catalog.

Build relationships and increase reorders. Retailers have told us time and again that they’re frustrated when they discover products are missing on Faire. Many report wasted time searching for unlisted products and a feeling of disappointment when they can’t place their full desired order, which sometimes prevents them from hitting order minimums and decreases the likelihood that they will come back and shop again. In fact, 40% of retailers say it’s the reason they don’t reorder from brands.

When sellers have incomplete catalogs or ask us to manage purchases direct to their wholesale site, it adds an administrative burden we cannot afford. Our time is limited, and we enjoy the one-stop shopping experience with Faire. If we need to load products manually, it makes the process less cost-effective and unappealing to the point we will likely drop the brand.

Andy, The Hidden Acorn

What tools does Faire offer for catalog management?

Improved bulk upload tools: The bulk upload tool allows you to do a CSV/Excel file upload of a list of your products, while our bulk editing tool allows you to edit multiple products at once directly in-portal. We’ve made a number of recent improvements to these tools—including the ability to sort, search, and filter your products; a full-screen mode for improved usability; and bulk actioning capabilities. Simply select which products you want to edit and apply one edit to multiple products at once.

Enhanced Shopify integration: If you’re a Shopify user, our enhanced integration enables you to easily import your full catalog to Faire. You can also set up inventory syncing, which will  keep your stock levels correct across the two platforms, and price syncing, which will ensure your wholesale prices are accurately reflected on Faire. When you add new products to Shopify, you can assign them a tag within Shopify and then specify that tag when indicating which products you want to import to Faire. Our teams are working on more tools to simplify the import and catalog management process for Shopify users, so look for updates later this year.

How to keep your catalog up-to-date

Depending on how frequently your inventory changes, we encourage you to make catalog reviews a consistent habit. The best-performing brands on Faire tell us that they carve out specific time on their calendars on a weekly or monthly basis to review their Faire catalogs. They ensure they’re listing all of their newest products and bestsellers and optimize their product descriptions and imagery to boost discovery.

Top brand questions, answered

We’ve rounded up a few of the most-asked questions from brands about listing their catalog on Faire:

Does Faire offer any other third-party catalog integration tools besides Shopify? 
Yes. For first-time catalog uploads, brands can use our Faire catalog template or a CSV catalog export from Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, or Wix. A comprehensive and clear catalog will ensure that your page is built to your expectations and will avoid any potential delays in the onboarding process. Find instructions for all options here. At this time, apart from Shopify, these tools do not offer ongoing catalog management functionality.

Do I need to list all of my wholesale products on Faire?
We encourage all brands to offer their complete catalog on Faire given its importance to retailers and its likelihood to increase your sales. And, specifically, in North America, in order to qualify for Top Shop status, you must have your entire wholesale catalog listed on Faire.

What does it mean to have my “complete catalog” on Faire? Do you make any exceptions? We define a complete catalog as having all wholesale products that you sell to retailers off of Faire listed on Faire. Of course, we understand that not every one of the products you sell CAN be listed on Faire, such as direct-to-consumer products and exclusives. This Help Center article offers a more detailed rundown of the products that are and are not expected to be included in a Faire brand’s “complete” wholesale catalog.

There are specific products that I don’t list on Faire due to margin. How can I maintain profitability if these products now need to be listed?
We understand that margins are an important consideration for your business, and you may be hesitant to list some products on Faire due to margin pressures. We know that catalog-complete brands see more views and higher annual order volume per year and that these brands tend to build stronger, long-term relationships with retailers. We encourage brands to consider the potential benefits of more sales volume across their entire shop when doing the math for their business.

Still have questions?

Feel free to reach out to us here, and we’ll be happy to help answer any other questions.