We’re excited to announce the 5th new eCat feature release of 2023. This update introduces new ways to use data for guiding customers to successful product selections and growing both their businesses and yours. It also introduces a message board to simplify communication with eCat users, two new PDF presentation formats, and new ways to manage and evaluate the effectiveness of customer showroom displays.

• Guide Customers to Success with Data-Driven Insights
• New Tools for Efficient Team Communication
• New Presentation Formats Show Related Items
• Manage Product Placements More Effectively
• New Alert Improves Scanned Order Accuracy

Guide Customers to Success with Data-Driven Insights

Effectively helping customers select the right products is a crucial part of sales. eCat’s powerful sorting, filtering, and sales display features convert up-to-date summary sales data provided by your company to actionable information so your team can quickly and interactively identify and guide customers to the products that best meet their current needs. This version of eCat introduces new catalog sorts and filters that extend those capabilities.*

Sort by Customer Sales: It’s now possible to sort the entire catalog, saved lists, SmartLists, customer showroom display audits, etc. by the currently selected customer’s item sales amount to identify best-sellers. Or sort by sales quantity to ensure outlier expensive products with low volume aren’t over represented in the results.

Filter items a Customer ‘Has/Has Not Purchased’: These new product filters enable eCat users to show or hide products the customer has purchased across the entire catalog or within specific collections or categories.

Combine these new features with eCat’s other sorting, filtering, and sales display capabilities to instantly view and share product recommendations customized for your customer. Here are a couple quick ideas, but you’ll find more ways to use this.

• Identify territory top sellers the customer has not recently purchased: Sort catalog by descending territory sales, filter to hide items the customer has purchased, then apply further filters as desired and/or view the catalog by category, etc. Regional top sellers the customer has not purchased will be shown at the top of every list.
• Prep for a client meeting by identifying customer product and style preferences: Filter to show items the customer has purchased, sort by descending customer sales, turn on ‘Show Customer Sales’ in Settings, then view photos to see what they prefer to buy and their top sellers.
• Sort customer showroom placements by customer sales rank to measure effectiveness and identify ways to improve performance.

*NOTE: The above features are included in your standard eCat service, but require summary sales data from your company. If your company is not yet sending the sales data file we encourage you to start as soon as possible. Used well, these sales intelligence features will grow your business! See Publishing Sales Data for details.

Learn More:

Sorting Products with Custom Fields | Knowledge Base

Built-in Filters | Knowledge Base Using eCat for Smart Selling | Video

New Tools for Efficient Team Communication

New eCat ‘Notice Board’: Building on the new eCat ‘Notice banner’’ feature, admins can now use the admin console Notices page to maintain a “message board” in the eCat Library. Individual notices can be published to specific user groups to ensure relevancy. Admins can control the sequence in which notices are displayed to users in the notice board. Notices deleted in the admin console are removed from user iPads.

• Distribute timely updates to your eCat users conveniently, in the tools they already use.
• Get reps' attention with notice banners, then allow them to reference info in the Notice board as needed.

Learn More:

Notices to Sales Reps in eCat | Knowledge Base

Resource Library | Knowledge Base

SuperCat ‘Notices’: SuperCat Solutions can now alert eCat users to important information including critical support updates and new releases. SuperCat will use these notices sparingly to provide valuable information without overwhelming users.

New Presentation Formats Show Related Items

Two new presentation layouts enable eCat admins to define 1-per-page and 4-per-page PDF presentation formats that show a product’s photo plus photos of up to 5 additional related items. Use this to present an item with photos of alternate finishes, items with matching patterns, coordinating items that go well together, or however your company chooses to use the related items field.

Learn More: Define PDF Presentation Formats | Knowledge Base

Manage Product Placements More Effectively

This release offers two new features for companies that use eCat’s product placement auditing feature. It’s now possible to show in eCat’s catalog view which items a customer has on display, the number of stores or “floors” in which products are currently being shown, and the quantity of each item the customer currently has on order.

"Show Customer Placements" Feature: Users can now tap “Show Customer Placements” in Settings to show a "Placements: #" badge over photos of products that are on display in customer showrooms. This also shows the number of showrooms in which a product is on display - automatically calculated from placements audit data on the iPad. This enables users to visually analyze placements and recommend display changes to customers on the fly. Used in combination with other eCat features ‘Show Placements’ provides insights for effectively managing your company’s investment in product placements.

• Evaluate display effectiveness: Sort the catalog by descending customer sales, turn on ‘Show Customer Sales’ and ‘Show Customer Placements’ in Settings. Then compare what a customer has on display with their item sales to evaluate display effectiveness and recommend changes.
• Recommend new display items based on regional sales data: Sort the catalog by territory sales rank, turn on ‘Show Customer Sales’ and ‘Show Customer Placements’, then compare what a customer has on display with top selling items their regional competitors are selling and they are not.

Learn more:

eCat Settings: Show Customer Placements

Publishing Summary Sales Data

New Alert Improves Scanned Order Accuracy

Large Quantity Pop-Up: If an eCat user enters an excessively large quantity while scanning showroom orders, for example by scanning a UPC code value into the order quantity field, an alert pop-up draws attention to the potential error. The alert allows users to 'submit anyway' if the quantity is accurate. This helps prevent errors on the backend, reduces manual order corrections, and enables accurate real-time market sales reporting.

In addition to the above features, as part of our mission to provide a reliable experience and high-quality software solution eCat 2023.5 also includes several usability improvements and minor enhancements.

Upgrade to eCat 2023.5 Today!

Encourage your team to upgrade to eCat 2023.5 today to accelerate sales and customer satisfaction. We're here to help you get the most benefit for your investment and support your success every step of the way. It’s a privilege to serve you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if we can help in any way.

- The SuperCat Team