Headless CMS Use Case: Product Catalogs

Whether it’s a B2C shopper comparing electric bikes or a B2B procurement team sourcing commercial HVAC systems, clear, accurate product information coupled with an engaging experience is what turns browsers into buyers. 

However, most companies still treat product catalogs as static landing pages and manage them using PIM systems or the limited content editing capabilities of commerce platforms. These tools are excellent at organizing data, including SKUs, inventory, and pricing. But they fall short when it comes to delivering immersive and engaging product experiences across all digital touchpoints.

However, when paired with a headless CMS that complements a PIM or e-commerce platform, enterprises can enrich product pages with editorial content, localized storytelling, comparison guides, videos, and testimonials. In this piece, we’ll explain why other product catalog solutions miss the mark and what makes a headless CMS perfect for this use case.

The Reality of Building a Product Catalog

Product catalogs help to bridge the gap between browsing and completing a purchase. In the B2C world, shoppers want fast-loading, visually appealing comparisons, and rich content to help them make informed decisions. However, 50% of consumers say they’ve abandoned an online purchase in the past six months due to a lack of sufficient product information.

B2B buyers, meanwhile, often need detailed technical specifications and compliance information to accompany dynamic content, justifying large or complex purchases. It’s why 74% of B2B buyers would switch suppliers for a better online buying experience.

Regardless of the situation, a well-structured product catalog helps drive conversions, reduce friction, and build trust at every stage of the buying journey.

Why E-Commerce Platforms Struggle

Modern eCommerce platforms are designed to facilitate transactions and manage inventory. They’re great at allowing brands to process orders, manage SKUs, or sync with payment gateways. 

However, when it comes to delivering a rich, flexible, and scalable product catalog experience, they fall short:

• Rigid content structures: Limited flexibility for custom content models, storytelling, or dynamic relationships between products.
• Poor omni-channel content delivery: E-Commerce platforms aren’t optimized to deliver content seamlessly across different digital touchpoints. For a simple commerce website, they work fine, but not for enterprise product catalog needs. 
• Developer bottlenecks: Customizing or extending product content often requires significant dev time and workarounds. 

Why a PIM Solution Doesn’t Fit

Another key part of the eCommerce stack, product information management (PIM) solutions excel at centralizing, organizing, and enriching product data across multiple systems. 

They’re ideal for managing large volumes of SKUs, ensuring data consistency, and syncing structured information like dimensions, specifications, and compliance fields. But while PIMs are essential for backend data operations, they’re not designed to power customer-facing experiences. Here are a few reasons why:

• Lack of rich content support: PIMs focus on data, not storytelling, so it’s difficult to add content such as videos or other rich media.
• No presentation layer: They don’t offer tools for designing or customizing frontend experiences.
• Not built for engagement: PIMs aren’t made for managing the frontend experience and lack support for SEO-optimized content and personalization.

How a Headless CMS Manages Product Catalog Requirements

While PIM solutions and e-commerce platforms are key for the commerce stack, a headless CMS fills the experience gap by enabling brands to craft rich, flexible, and scalable product catalogs that go beyond raw data. It complements PIM and e-commerce platforms by serving as the content layer that drives engagement, storytelling, and omni-channel delivery.

Here’s why a headless CMS is a perfect fit for product catalogs:

• Dynamic rich media and editorial content: Store owners can embed videos, testimonials, interactive guides, and lifestyle imagery alongside core product data.
• Custom content modeling: Teams can introduce modular product content types (e.g., features, benefits, FAQs, comparisons) that can be reused for various purposes.
• Omnichannel delivery: Product catalogs can be distributed seamlessly across web, mobile apps, kiosks, marketplaces, and even AR/VR interfaces via APIs.
• Localization and personalization: Commerce teams can tailor catalogs to specific regions, languages, or audience segments. 

Building Product Catalogs with CrafterCMS

While e-commerce platforms and PIM systems are essential to managing transactions and product data, they weren’t built to deliver compelling, content-rich product experiences across every channel. CrafterCMS is an enterprise-grade headless CMS with features for businesses to create dynamic and engaging product catalogs. 

User-Friendly Content Authoring

With CrafterCMS, merchandisers and content teams get intuitive tools to create, update, and manage product catalog content. From drag-and-drop layouts and WYSIWYG editing to multi-channel previews, teams can easily craft rich, engaging product experiences and publish them across websites, mobile apps, and more.

Built-in Product Search

CrafterCMS comes with an integrated, AI-powered search engine powered by OpenSearch, making it easy for customers to quickly find the products, categories, or specifications they’re looking for. Content teams and developers can fine-tune search relevance, filters, and ranking to ensure a seamless and intuitive catalog browsing experience.

Custom Content Modeling

CrafterCMS gives teams complete flexibility to define custom content models. Whether you’re managing hundreds of SKUs, product variants, technical specs, or related accessories, you can structure content precisely the way your business needs and scale it across storefronts, microsites, or promotional landing pages.

AI-Powered Product Catalogs

CrafterCMS is a modern, AI-enabled CMS designed to elevate how enterprises manage and scale product content. With native integration of large language models (LLMs) and built-in AI capabilities, such as generative content creation, AI-assisted product search, and advanced prompt management, CrafterCMS helps teams streamline catalog updates, automate content workflows, and deliver more relevant and personalized shopping experiences.

Composable Commerce Integrations

Plugins and blueprints in the CrafterCMS Marketplace enables easy extension of your product catalog experience with plug-and-play integrations. With available plugins for leading tools like commercetools and Stripe, teams can seamlessly connect commerce backends and payment systems to create a unified shopping experience.

CrafterCMS Case Studies: Creating Dynamic Product Catalogs

Digital Bookstore for Thalia

Thalia, a leading European bookstore chain with over 350 locations, utilizes CrafterCMS to market its constantly evolving inventory of more than 11 million digital and physical products across Europe. With a product catalog powered by CrafterCMS, they are able to launch more efficient product promotions, faster content publishing cycles, and increased e-commerce sales. 

Pizza E-Commerce and Delivery

A leading pizza franchise manages their product catalog using CrafterCMS. Online users can configure their own custom pizzas, or choose from a wide variety of standard configurations. Marketers can add their own content around all items, including promotional materials, landing pages, deals, and coupons. 

Wrapping Up

With CrafterCMS, enterprises can turn static product catalogs into dynamic, content-driven experiences that inform, inspire, and convert across every channel. See how you can leverage CrafterCMS’s AI functionality to power these experiences by watching our recorded webinar: The Future of GenAI and Content Management.