If you’re selling into construction, manufacturing, or specialist trades, your range probably isn’t built around simplicity. You’ve got hundreds, sometimes thousands, of SKUs. Multiple finishes, pack sizes, lengths, diameters. Configurable products and cut-to-length variants. It’s what your customers need, and it’s what your business has always done.

The problem is not the range. It’s the structure.

We regularly encounter catalogue setups that have grown reactively, often built on top of decisions made years ago - when the range was smaller, the team was leaner, and the stakes were lower. At the time, the focus was on getting products online quickly. Now, those same decisions are undermining performance across the entire digital estate.

As the structure deteriorates, key platform functions begin to falter. Search becomes unreliable, filters behave inconsistently, and page load times stretch to frustrating levels, especially on mobile. Internally, confidence in the data erodes. What began as a tool to drive growth now feels like a constraint, limiting what teams can deliver and how fast they can move.

This isn’t just a product data issue. It’s a structural drag on your ability to grow.

Where Complexity Becomes Chaos

Almost every business we work with has been here at some point. They know they need to improve performance. They can feel the friction building, but it’s hard to diagnose when the symptoms don’t show up in one place, and because no single team “owns” the catalogue, it quietly becomes everyone’s problem, and no one’s priority.

We’ve seen product grids with 500+ variants, all using the same thumbnail image. We’ve seen configurable products with inconsistent attribute sets that collapse the filter logic. We’ve seen entire categories of cut-to-length or made-to-order SKUs mashed into templates designed for standard boxed items. On the surface, it all looks fine, but dig even a little deeper, and the inefficiencies are everywhere.

It’s what we call SKU sprawl, and it’s one of the most persistent blockers in B2B we encounter across various levels in the eEvo Model™.

Not because of bad data entry. Not because of legacy systems. But because no one has ever stepped back and asked: does this structure still make sense?

What SKU Sprawl Really Costs You

The real cost of SKU sprawl isn’t just technical - it’s operational and commercial. It slows down the entire machine.

1. Customer Discovery Grinds to a Halt

When product relationships aren’t defined correctly, filters fail and search results become noisy or irrelevant. What should be a simple “find and buy” journey turns into a dead-end. That’s when customers call your sales team, dust off old catalogues, or go back to their preferred rep. You haven’t digitised the buying experience - you’ve just recreated the catalogue online.

2. Search Tools Can’t Keep Up

Even best-in-class search tools - whether it’s Algolia, Klevu, or Adobe Live Search - can only perform as well as the data they rely on. When product structures are fragmented, attribute logic breaks down, indexing fails, and query rules deliver inconsistent results. The issue rarely lies with the tool itself; it lies in the foundation. Fixing it requires more than surface-level tuning. It demands a fundamental rethink of how product data is organised, structured, and maintained.

3. Site Speed and Stability Decline

When catalogues become large and poorly structured, they place significant and unnecessary strain on the platform. Load times increase, particularly on mobile, and key performance metrics, like Core Web Vitals, begin to deteriorate. The problem is compounded when layered with legacy code and complex third-party integrations. At that point, it’s not just a case of slow pages, it’s a systemic performance issue that no amount of caching or front-end patchwork will meaningfully resolve.

4. Backend Management Becomes a Bottleneck

Merchandising teams often find themselves stuck in reactive mode, spending more time correcting errors than driving meaningful improvements. Admin users begin to avoid certain SKUs altogether, knowing they’re fragile or inconsistently configured. Launching new ranges becomes slower and riskier, not because of a lack of capability, but because even minor changes can produce unpredictable results. When confidence in the system starts to slip, progress inevitably slows.

How We Fix SKU Sprawl

We don’t approach this like a tidy-up job. We treat it as a fundamental platform issue.

Our process is rigorous, structured, and built from years of experience working with complex B2B product sets and the systems that support them.

Step 1: Product Data Audit

We begin with a forensic review of your product catalogue. Not just the SKUs and attributes, but the logic that holds them together. We analyse how categories are structured, how variants are grouped, and how that structure aligns, or fails to align, with how your customers actually browse, search, and buy.

We cross-reference product data with real user behaviour. Where do customers drop off? What filters do they use? Which search terms fail to return results?

This phase is about uncovering the hidden structure behind your catalogue, because once we understand how it works, we can start to fix how it performs.

Step 2: SKU Rationalisation

This isn’t about reducing choice. It’s about making choices usable.

We identify duplicates, consolidate variants, clean up inconsistent naming conventions, and align attribute logic across categories. We rationalise the data around buyer behaviour.

Do customers care about every millimetre of variance in a bolt length? Or do they just want the standard size, and a way to drill down if they need something specific?

These are the questions we ask, and answer, with data, not assumption.

Step 3: Performance Refactor

Once the structure is in place, we optimise the performance. That includes how data is stored, indexed, and retrieved. We update caching strategies, rebuild filters, and rework how related products and attributes are processed.

In practical terms, this means faster load times, more relevant search results, and better filter performance - particularly on mobile, where most UX issues tend to surface first.

Step 4: Integration Alignment

If the problems extend beyond the catalogue - into ERP, PIM or stock systems - we address those too. We’ve worked with Orderwise, SAP, Dynamics and more, so we understand how downstream systems can distort the way product data is surfaced.

Rather than working around those systems, we build alignment into the integration itself, so that data flows smoothly from source to storefront.

The Work Doesn’t Stop There

One of the most common missteps we see after a catalogue restructure is treating it as a one-time fix. In reality, SKU sprawl is a gradual, recurring challenge - one that tends to resurface as product ranges grow, teams evolve, or new systems are introduced. Without ongoing oversight, even the best-structured catalogue can slowly slip back into disorder.

That’s why we build ongoing optimisation into our Unlimited Support programme:

• Monthly product data reviews

• Performance tracking across search, filter and load times

• Admin tooling improvements to make catalogue management easier

• Integration monitoring to catch issues early

Support isn’t just about break/fix. It’s about continuous evolution, especially in B2B, where catalogues never stand still.

What a Well-Structured Catalogue Actually Delivers

When catalogue architecture is aligned to customer behaviour and supported by scalable tech, the results are significant and measurable.

• Customers find what they need, without frustration

• Merchandising teams spend time improving, not correcting

• Performance improves across mobile and desktop

• The cost of complexity drops, and ROI becomes easier to prove

In many cases, the impact goes beyond technical performance. The platform starts to feel faster in a commercial sense, with teams moving with greater confidence, plans becoming easier to execute, and the roadmap gaining clarity. Internal blockers that once slowed progress begin to disappear, simply because the underlying structure is finally enabling the business, rather than hindering it.

If Your Catalogue Feels Like a Burden, It Shouldn’t Be

Here’s a simple test.

Go to your own website. Try to buy something that a new customer would need, without using the internal shortcuts your team relies on.

Can you find it easily?
Do the filters make sense?
Would you feel confident placing the order?

If the answer to any of those is “not really,” then it’s time to act.

You’ve got the range. You’ve got the expertise.
Let’s make sure your product catalogue reflects that, and supports your next phase of growth.