1.1 Introduction
An online product catalog system is an application software that allows a brand to communicates with its customers. Customers are informed of all relevant product details before they move ahead in the purchase funnel. For a business, it's a tool that helps its product or services go online and become visible to potential customers. More visibility means increased sales prospects which in return assure better conversion rates (G2, 2021). The global community especially the technologically advanced world is striving to attain the global information age. It is an age that is envisaged to go beyond the use of computers as a mere tool for fast information processing, rather they will also become medium for processing, arranging, analyzing and transferring such information from one location to another at equal fast rate.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Products catalogs are basically created to provide manufacturers and suppliers, with a platform to present their products and services efficiently to the online audience. These product are fast gaining popularity as they are the most cost-effective medium of advertising online, besides being one of the most successful medium (Mackay, et al., 2006). However, just displaying a product catalog would not help a business sell its products and services. It has to be attractive, with organized information as well. An organized, appealing and well-formatted product catalog is more likely to make an impact than a plain one with inadequate details.
Product can be displayed on the company’s website or online store. The visitors can visit the website and look through the range of products offered by the company. The product can be sent to the business directories where they can be accessed by wholesalers and retailers from different parts of the world.
The product can be emailed to prospective buyers in the form of an e-mail marketing tool.
Furthermore, catalog is a complete list of item, for example, of things that people can look at or buy (Horney, 2000). Online catalog is of a great benefit thus, providing sellers with a content management system that assembles aggregates, normalizes, and distributes product information. In the same vein, it also provides potential buyers with an interactive interface that offers a multimedia representation of the product information as well as retrieval, classification and ordering services. People derive joy through online cataloging and shopping (Wolfinbarger, 2007). This, in fact, is one of the reasons people shop online because if it is not enjoyable and interesting, they will not. Online catalog uses a multidimensional visualization mechanism based on parallel coordinates and augmented by a number of visual facilities for filtering, tagging, color-coding, and dynamic querying.
Moreover, online product catalog (or electronic product catalog) is an element of e-commerce. Over the past few years, electronic commerce (or e-commerce) on the Internet has emerged as a dramatic new mode of business. Online product are much more than the electronic version of printed product (Staray, 2005). On one hand, they are a content management system that provides sellers with the ability to assemble, aggregate, and normalize product (or service) information from supplier databases and quickly, inexpensively, and easily distribute the information. They provide potential buyers with an interactive interface by offering a visual representation of product information as well as retrieval, classification, and ordering services.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Most industries and large organization in Nigeria are yet to create awareness about their products and services. Sometimes the way the awareness is been carried out is far behind technology. People waste a lot of time seeking for information regarding the type of products manufactured and how these products work and how to purchase them. Most people are unaware of the existence of the organization, what products they sell, and the services they offer.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement an Online Product Catalog System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:
- Visually display products online and group the products into various categories with descriptions.
- Use the Online Product Catalog as effective search tools.
- Place orders (Cart), create sales easily and help the buyers acquire updated price quotations.
1.5 Significance of Study
The relevance of the study is that, organizations has been making use of printed product catalogues without images. This method or system requires that customers or prospective buyers visit the nearest depot to view the products and place their orders manually before any transaction of whatsoever is made. But with the online product catalogues, the benefits of online media advertising are experienced.
This will help to bridge the gap between the company and the rest of the world.
Also, the companies’ products will be visually displayed online to enable the prospective buyers and customers to know the available products, these products will be categorized and described accordingly like type, model, manufacturer, color, and so on.
1.6 Scope of Study
This research work covers the design and development of an online product catalog for Purvey Nigeria Limited. It will show case or advertise products on sale to the online audience customers. The system will also feature a search option where users can search by category or by keyword. And also the users can create an order or a wish list of items they wish to purchase.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Administrator: He sees to the security and maintenance of the Web Application. He may or may not be a professional in Web Content Management.
Back-end: This is the Web Administrator’s Corner. It comprises web pages that give the web administrator the ability to manage and control the contents of a dynamic website.
Catalogue/Catalog: An organized collection of available goods and services produced by a company, this can be printed papers or electronic in nature.
