How to Create an Electronic Parts Catalog

Moving from hard copy to digital

Even brick-and mortar-businesses can benefit from going digital. Creating an electronic catalog of your parts helps to organize the parts and create a centralized spot for referencing, updating and sharing your catalog. E-catalogs can be used for internal purposes or published publicly. The task of creating an electronic parts catalog does not have to be painful, as long as you plan ahead.

Things You'll Need

• Spreadsheet software

Instructions

1. Organize your hard-copy data by gathering a full list of parts. Include all the data you need for the parts, such as part number, item description, photos of items, category, sub-category, sizes and colors.

2. Write down the various attributes of all your parts. This will help you decide which information needs to be included in your catalog. This preparation will ultimately make importing the catalog into useful tools such as websites and inventory ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software much easier.

3. 

   Enter the data.

   Create a spreadsheet with headers above each column that name a characteristic of the parts, such as price, part number or size. Enter each part name in its own row, and each part characteristic in the columns next to it.

4. Publish your spreadsheet to a centralized place on your network or the Internet, so others can use the data.

Tips & Warnings

• As the company, Catalyst, points out in its article, "Do's and Don'ts of Publishing Online Parts Catalogs," it is important to think about maintenance when creating your e-catalog. Certain aspects of your parts, like price, may change over time. The size of the catalog database should also be considered. If each part has several sizes, this may lead to an exponential growth of your spreadsheet. Consider categorizing parts and placing each category on a new tab, or worksheet, within your spreadsheet. This will help with the overall organization and maintenance of your e-catalog.

• Although you may need to hire computer programmers to import your parts catalog into a website's e-commerce catalog or inventory ERP software, the time to do this will be lessened because the data is neatly organized in spreadsheet database form.

• If your catalog will be used as an internal reference guide, it may be important to include both the manufacturer's part number and your company's custom ID. If the parts list will be used as a launching board for an e-commerce catalog, then it may need to contain several pricing levels or the items' UPCs.

References

• Cadalyst: Do's and Don'ts of Publishing Online Parts Catalogs