There's an almost endless amount of online stores out there, which is great for companies trying to reach as many consumers as possible. It’s not so great if you’re the one in charge of updating product descriptions.
Tracking an ever-growing list of product descriptions and associated media using traditional methods like emails and spreadsheets is a headache, and it can slow the scaling process for growing companies.
“Four years ago, our customers could have gotten away with using spreadsheets,” said Catsy CEO Sanjeev Teku. “Now, the major e-commerce players are trying to distinguish themselves through unique content. This has created a need for better management methods.”
Catsy is a Chicago company whose cloud-based product information management software provides companies with a single platform for managing and updating their product descriptions, images and specifications. Other features of the platform include an integration with Adobe InDesign that makes it easier to create digital and physical sales catalogs and tools for SEO optimization.
The company was originally founded as a consulting firm in 2003, but it quickly pivoted to software and eventually adopted the SaaS model in 2008.
Our clients can quickly go live, which gives them a great leg up over the competition.”
Catsy’s product information management system is designed to provide a single storehouse for product data and images. Users upload their spreadsheets and images directly to the platform. From there, users only need to update their column names to match the system’s established categories to ensure the right data is matched to the right product.
Once uploaded, product descriptions and their associated images can quickly be pushed to major e-commerce sites like Amazon, Walmart, NewEgg and others via Catsy’s API. Updates to product descriptions can be made en masse, and users are notified when their content needs to be updated to meet a marketplace’s requirement.
“Our API is multilingual, very robust and easy to use,” Teku said. “Our clients can quickly go live, which gives them a great leg up over the competition.”
Catsy has a local headcount of 15 and is looking to bring on six to 10 new hires to add to its sales, customer success and tech teams. A growing team provides bigger opportunities for the company as a whole, including the chance to make a bigger impact on the local tech scene.
“We want to contribute more to the Chicago tech community,” Teku said. “Our vision is to help our customers and be a big participant in the community as we continue to grow.”
