Managing a product catalog with tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of SKUs can be daunting. With so many products and potential data points, how do you determine which attributes to focus on first? Where do you begin when your goal is to optimize for search relevance, user engagement, and overall business impact?
The key lies in strategic attribute prioritization. By approaching your catalog with a clear framework, you can focus your data improvement efforts where they matter most—and generate meaningful ROI.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to prioritizing product attributes for large-scale ecommerce catalogs.
The first priority should be attributes that directly influence how well your products perform in search results and how easily customers can filter through them.
Core Attributes
Ensure that every SKU in your catalog includes the essential building blocks:
Category
Brand
Product Name or Title
These core fields are critical for product indexing, navigation, and SEO performance. Incomplete or inconsistent entries here can significantly reduce visibility and discoverability.
Physical Attributes
Attributes like size, color, material, and dimensions play a central role in filter functionality. Standardizing and completing these fields improves the accuracy of layered navigation and on-site search filtering. When these are missing or inconsistent, shoppers struggle to refine results or find relevant items, leading to frustration and abandonment.
Tip: Use CatalogIQ to score attribute completeness and consistency at scale, so you can zero in on which products are missing core data.
Once foundational data is in place, the next layer involves attributes that help describe and differentiate products more meaningfully. These are particularly important in categories where product preference is highly subjective, such as apparel, beauty, home decor, and food.
Examples of Descriptive Attributes:
Fit (e.g., slim, relaxed)
Style (e.g., modern, boho)
Scent or Flavor (e.g., lavender, vanilla, spicy)
Pattern (e.g., striped, floral)
Why These Matter: Descriptive attributes help customers connect with products on a personal level. They allow filtering by preference, support visual merchandising strategies, and improve the relevance of recommendation engines. For instance, an "organic" label on skincare products might resonate deeply with health-conscious buyers.
When customers see attributes that match their preferences, they’re more likely to engage, click, and convert.
For brands and retailers selling complex or performance-oriented products—think electronics, appliances, sporting goods, or tools—technical and functional attributes are non-negotiable.
Examples of Performance Attributes:
Battery life
Durability rating
Water resistance level
Compatibility (e.g., device, software, accessory)
Power output or efficiency rating
Why These Matter: Shoppers in these categories are often doing detailed comparisons. They rely heavily on specs to make informed purchase decisions. If this information is missing or buried in product descriptions, trust declines and bounce rates rise. Conversely, rich, accessible spec data fosters trust and supports confident buying decisions.
The modern consumer often shops with more than just price and specs in mind. Values such as sustainability, social responsibility, and customization play a growing role in purchase behavior. Incorporating these into your product data can help build loyalty and open doors to niche market segments.
Examples of Customer-Centric Attributes:
Eco-friendly / Recyclable
Cruelty-free / Vegan
Fair Trade Certified
Customizable / Personalized
Made in USA / Locally Sourced
Why These Matter: These attributes help align your catalog with customer values and build emotional connections with your brand. They're also increasingly used in filters and search, especially among Gen Z and millennial shoppers. If you can surface this data clearly, you not only differentiate your offerings but also tap into mission-driven buyer intent.
Take, for example, a retailer managing a large catalog of home improvement tools. After auditing their product data with CatalogIQ, they discovered that over 60% of SKUs lacked compatibility attributes (e.g., "fits Ryobi 18V system"). This missing detail was leading to high product returns and poor search relevance.
By prioritizing compatibility as a key attribute and enriching those fields across the catalog, the brand reduced returns, boosted conversion rates, and improved on-site search performance dramatically. Prioritizing the right attributes made the difference between confusion and clarity for customers.
When dealing with large catalogs, it’s important to apply a systematic approach to attribute improvement. Here are a few best practices:
1. Audit Your Existing Attribute Coverage
Use a scoring tool (like CatalogIQ) to identify where you have gaps, redundancies, or inconsistencies in attribute data across categories.
2. Analyze Customer Behavior
Review site analytics, filter usage, and internal search logs. Which attributes are being used in queries? Which filters get the most clicks? This helps prioritize enhancements based on real shopper behavior.
3. Align with Business Goals
Whether you’re looking to reduce returns, expand internationally, or improve SEO, ensure your attribute prioritization strategy ties directly to KPIs. For instance, adding multilingual descriptors might be essential for a new market launch.
4. Apply Category-Specific Strategies
Attribute importance varies by category. Develop tailored attribute models per category or vertical, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
5. Automate and Enrich with AI
Use AI tools like CatalogIQ to automatically fill gaps and standardize attributes. Manual enrichment isn’t scalable in most large catalogs—automation is the only viable path to speed and scale.
When you prioritize the right attributes, you unlock better performance across your ecommerce stack:
Improved search relevance
Smarter filtering and discovery
Increased engagement and conversion
Higher customer satisfaction and lower returns
Start with the essentials. Build from there. And let data, not guesswork, drive your decisions. And that's how you begin to optimize your product data Beyond The Catalog.
Need help identifying which attributes matter most to your catalog?
Schedule a CatalogIQ demo today and see how attribute scoring and enrichment can drive real business results.