Why manufacturing websites still struggle with product catalogs - and how to fix

Manufacturers have come a long way in how they showcase their products. As digital catalogs become more common, many now offer full product listings directly on their websites. These online catalogs make things easier for customers - they can quickly access specs, request a quote, and even get after-sales support, all in one place.

However, managing product catalogs is far from simple - it's about building a website that's structured to present information clearly, consistently, and efficiently. Many manufacturers are still in the early stages of digitization - having relied on printed catalogs for years, their first step is often converting those into downloadable PDFs, with little adaptation for digital use. On top of that, product information needs to be made available across multiple channels, such as dealer portals, which makes it even harder to keep everything up to date.

At Hygraph, we recently launched the State of Content Management Report to explore how industry leaders prepare content for the future. We surveyed professionals across various sectors - including manufacturing - and have distilled the key findings most relevant to manufacturers.

• 86% of manufacturers think their existing CMS is preventing their organisation from unlocking full value from its data and content.
• 48% of manufacturers stated that the biggest challenge they face is that changes can only be made by a small number of people with the right skills.
• 91% of manufacturers find it challenging to keep different data and content types consistent.
• 97% of manufacturers find it very or somewhat challenging to efficiently serve data/content from multiple sources to multiple devices or channels.
• 95% of manufacturing organizations need to build and manage custom middleware to connect to other existing content and data sources (e.g. PIM, DAM, SaaS tools, etc.) with existing CMS.

If you're facing content or catalog management challenges, you're not alone - and you're exactly where you need to be.

#Typical components of a manufacturing website

Before we dive into why product catalogs are often so hard to manage, let's take a quick look at what typically makes up a manufacturer's website.

Why? Because the catalog doesn't exist in isolation. It's connected to - and often limited by - how the rest of the site is structured. And if we want to fix the catalog experience, we need to look at the full picture.

We're specifically talking about companies that sell through partners, not online stores, and rely on their websites to showcase product content - not to process orders.

Here are the core building blocks we see across most B2B manufacturing websites:

1. Product catalog

This is the heart of the website. It lists complex products with specs, variations, and applications. There's no shopping cart, but users expect to easily browse, compare, and request a quote. It's also where most of the pain comes from - outdated systems, inconsistent data, and messy content updates.

2.Technical and marketing content

Manufacturers often support their products with additional pages: use cases, application examples, industry-specific solutions, and downloadable brochures or whitepapers. These give context to the catalog but require consistent content and structure to work well.

3.Digital assets and documentation

From PDFs and CAD files to safety sheets and user manuals, B2B buyers rely on downloadable documents to understand your products. These assets need to be up-to-date, organized, and easily accessible from product detail pages.

4.Multilingual content

Many manufacturers operate in multiple markets and regions, which means product content has to be localized - not just translated. Beyond language, maintaining consistent design and user experience across these regional websites is also a major challenge. Often, teams end up duplicating work to manage separate sites for each market, leading to multiple versions of the same content scattered across systems. This not only increases the risk of outdated information but also makes scaling and maintaining websites far more time-consuming and error-prone.

5.Dealer and partner portals

Some sites offer gated access for dealers or distributors. Even if the portal is separate, it still pulls from the same product data. If the catalog isn't structured properly, these portals become hard to maintain and update.

6.Lead generation and sales enablement

Without eCommerce, a manufacturer's website serves primarily as an informational hub - helping dealers, the sales team, and end customers make decisions, and guiding users to the right local dealership through contact forms, quote requests, or distributor finders. But if product content is slow to load or difficult to navigate, users are likely to drop off before they ever get in touch.

This structure isn't just nice to have - it's essential. And if even one part of it is outdated or poorly managed, the entire customer experience suffers.

Now that we've set the stage, let's dig into why managing product catalogs on these sites is still such a struggle - and how to fix it.

#Top challenges in managing digital product catalogs

Outdated content management process

Many manufacturers still rely on custom-built platforms or legacy CMSs that are tightly coupled with internal systems. As a result, even small content updates - like changing a spec or uploading a file - can take far longer than they should. Every change has to go through IT, and often, only a handful of people have the necessary access or skills. This challenge is reflected in our State of CMS Report, where 48% of manufacturers said their biggest hurdle is that updates can only be made by a small number of qualified people.

It creates bottlenecks, slows teams down, and stalls progress. As Forbes put it, outdated tech can poison your business - and content management is no exception.

When the Marketing team wanted to upload a video, they had to send it to the agency. They would upload it to a platform and send it back with an ID for insertion into the previous CMS. It was very time-consuming.

Data quality and consistency

Manufacturers typically manage large volumes of product data - thousands of SKUs, each with their own specifications, documents, and images. But in many cases, that information is scattered across spreadsheets, PDFs, shared drives, and disconnected portals. This results in inconsistent data across channels, outdated content staying live on websites, and teams wasting time duplicating efforts to maintain accuracy.

When your CMS doesn't support structured content or reusable components, the problem only gets worse. Teams are forced to manually copy and paste the same details into multiple places, increasing the risk of errors and making updates slow and frustrating. It's no surprise that 91% of manufacturers say keeping different data and content types consistent is a major challenge.

Poor customer experience

When your backend systems are outdated, it's not just your team that suffers - your customers feel it too.

Slow page speeds, clunky navigation, and hard-to-find product details are still far too common on manufacturing websites. And that's a big problem, especially as B2B buyers now expect the same high-quality digital experiences they get in B2C. According to a survey by Akeneo, 79% of B2B buyers expect clearly written, accurate product descriptions - a clear sign that buyers want precise, consistent information delivered in the right place, at the right time.

But here's the thing: just because the content exists doesn't mean it's accessible. Without structured data and a solid content architecture, even your most valuable specs, CAD files, or brochures can end up buried - or worse, completely overlooked. That's a lost opportunity not just for engagement, but for revenue.

#How can you pivot the struggles? 4 things to consider

Break down the monolith

Let's start with the root of the problem: the monolithic setup. Most legacy CMSs used by manufacturers are tightly coupled systems, where the frontend and backend - and sometimes the entire infrastructure - are locked together. And it's not just the CMS. Manufacturers often juggle multiple systems behind the scenes - PIMs, ERPs, CRMs, and more - each built for a specific purpose but rarely built to work well together. In a monolithic setup, trying to connect or update any of these tools becomes complex and fragile. Even a small content change can trigger a ripple effect, requiring IT involvement and risking system instability.

If you've ever delayed a product update because it was ''too complicated to change one thing'' you've felt this pain firsthand.

The way forward is a headless, modular approach. By decoupling the frontend from the backend and managing content via APIs, you can update and deliver product information without breaking everything else. Instead of managing a stack of siloed systems, a headless CMS allows you to connect your tools, accelerate your catalog updates, and keep your digital ecosystem clean and scalable.

Use content as modular components

Once you've decoupled your frontend from the backend using an API-first approach, the next step is optimizing how you structure and reuse your content. One of the most effective ways to do this is by treating content as modular components. Instead of rebuilding the same elements - download cards, banners, call-to-action buttons - across every page or product line, you create them once as reusable components. These components can then be pulled into multiple content models like product pages, landing pages, or resource libraries.

For example, with Hygraph, you can use modular content fields to assemble these pieces into dynamic pages. This doesn't just make editing easier - it reduces duplication, minimizes human error, and ensures consistency across your entire catalog and website. For manufacturing websites where thousands of product variants share specs, documents, or layouts, this kind of reusability can save hours of work and reduce publishing cycles significantly.

Maintain a single source of truth

Most manufacturing websites are powered by a patchwork of systems - PIMs, ERPs, CRMs, and CMSs - each doing its job, but often creating silos. This leads to fragmented product data, duplicated content, and constant firefighting to ensure updates go live in the right place.

Hygraph helps you cut through that complexity by acting as a unified layer for content and product data. It's built on GraphQL and designed to integrate easily with other systems - meaning you can pull in existing product information from your PIM or ERP and serve it alongside marketing content in one consistent experience across every channel.

And if you need Hygraph to be the system of record for some types of product data, it gives you the flexibility to host your content or fetch it from remote sources, creating a reliable single source of truth that powers your website, customer portals, and partner tools - all while reducing data duplication and manual updates.

Komax Group's website runs on a Nuxt 3 frontend that connects to multiple APIs, including Hygraph and a GraphQL integration layer for PIM data. Rather than tightly coupling frontend components from different systems, Komax now uses a decoupled architecture that cleanly consumes data via APIs.

Adapt your CMS to editorial needs

A CMS isn't just for developers - it should also work for the people who use it every day: your content, product, and marketing teams. Many legacy or monolithic CMSs make publishing a slow, technical process. But Hygraph is designed with editorial experience in mind.

With our clean UI, role-based access control, and flexible content modeling, Hygraph lets your team move fast without compromising structure. Editors can manage multi-language versions of product pages, reuse components, schedule updates, and collaborate without relying on developers to make small changes.

In the manufacturing space, where product info is frequently updated across multiple markets and portals, this kind of editorial agility is critical. Publishing delays don't just frustrate teams - they can delay go-to-market efforts, partner communications, and customer updates, all of which impact revenue.

Manufacturers today are juggling fragmented content and siloed data — and 91% admit it’s a major hurdle. A headless CMS that federates content across all sources changes the game: delivering seamless, modern user experiences without disturbing the legacy systems that run the business. It's the future of manufacturing content strategy — stable at the core, dynamic at the edge.

#Manage your product catalog better with a headless CMS

When your product catalog is well-managed, everything gets easier. Your team can work more efficiently, product information stays consistent across channels, and customers can actually find what they're looking for. With Hygraph, you can structure product data for reuse, streamline updates without relying on IT, and deliver fast, reliable experiences across websites and partner portals. It's a modern setup built for manufacturers who need flexibility, speed, and scalability. If you want to explore further why Hygraph is a great fit for managing product catalogs, request a demo today.