Before you touch Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, or any platform, organize your products. The hour you spend on this saves ten hours of fixing things later.
This checklist works regardless of which platform you're using or how many products you have.
1. Get everything in one spreadsheet
If your product data is scattered across multiple files, sticky notes, supplier emails, and your head — collect it all into one spreadsheet first. Columns you'll need at minimum:
- Product name — Clear, specific, searchable. "Blue Ceramic Mug 12oz" not "Mug #47."
- Price — Your actual selling price, not cost. Numeric values only — no "TBD" or "Call for pricing."
- SKU — A unique code for each product. If you don't have one, create one. Format: category-number works (MUG-001, TEE-042).
- Description — Even a rough one. "Hand-thrown ceramic, 12oz, dishwasher safe" is enough to start with.
2. Clean your product names
Product names become URLs and search results. They need to be clear, consistent, and specific.
- Use the same format for every product: [Brand] [Product] [Key Feature] [Size/Color if relevant]
- Remove internal codes and abbreviations customers won't understand
- Don't ALL CAPS anything
- Trim leading and trailing spaces (they cause invisible problems in every platform)
3. Standardize your prices
Every price should be a number. Not "$49.99," not "49.99 USD," not "POR." Just "49.99." Your platform adds the currency symbol.
If some products are "Price on request" or "Call for pricing," you have two options: set them to $0 and mark as draft, or set a placeholder price and note it in the description. But the price field must be numeric for any platform's importer to accept it.
4. Create consistent categories
Decide on your category structure before you start uploading. Write it down. Every product should fit into exactly one category.
Keep it simple. Three levels maximum: "Clothing > Men's > T-Shirts." Don't create categories with fewer than 3 products — that's a tag, not a category.
5. Prepare your images
Every platform wants square or near-square images at minimum 1000x1000 pixels. JPEG or PNG. White or consistent background. Name your image files after the product they belong to — "blue-ceramic-mug.jpg" is infinitely more useful than "IMG_4837.jpg."
If you don't have product photos yet, you can still build your catalog and add images later. Don't let missing photos stop you from getting everything else in order.
6. Write descriptions (or let AI do it)
Every product needs at least a 2-3 sentence description. No platform will rank a product with an empty description field. If writing hundreds of descriptions sounds overwhelming, that's normal.
Catalogd writes unique descriptions for your entire catalog based on whatever data you have — even if all you have is a product name and price. Upload your spreadsheet and get back a complete catalog with descriptions, SEO, and formatting for your platform. Try it free with 5 products.