CURATING GUIDELINES By organizing your products in a digital catalog using categories and subcategories tailored to specific niches, you allow clients to save time and avoid frustration. In determining your product groupings, there are several rules you should follow. For starters, consider the general orientation of your business. Are you doing custom/ retail sales or business-to-business work? This is a good opportunity to take stock of what is and isn't working optimally in your company. Ask your salespeople to identify your top-selling products and talk to your production team about decorating issues posed by various garments. Conversations like these can provide a lot of data-driven direction. You'll discover which "bargain" products may be costing you and gather the needed input to create collections incorporating merchandise that yields the best overall return. Looking at your sales history and data also will indicate what's trending with your current clients so you can promote that to your prospects. In integrating your findings into categories and subcategories, be critical. Ditch underperforming products and have a solid reason for adding new ones. Also, be mindful of seasonal items. Consider creating good, better and best categories, and limit the number of items in each category and subcategory. Your website's search engine needs to be created with the goal of helping customers find what they want quickly. Show all relevant items with the ability to narrow the initial results to more specifics. 38 Impressions | August 2015 impressionsmag.comhttp://www.impressionsmag.com