Create a Product Database In 3 Steps

A Quick & Easy Guide on How to Create a Product Database

Product databases are a critical source of information for brick-and-mortar or e-commerce businesses alike. They store everything your business needs to know about its products and serve as a single source of truth for anyone who needs information about products.

Let’s find out how to create the perfect product database in just a few steps. Scroll down to access a free template application that stores data about products, categories, and suppliers.

Develop a Custom Product Database
Stay on top of your products and their attributes

What Is a Product Database?

A product database stores information or attributes about products, such as the product name, weight, color, material, size, price, discount levels, minimum order quantity, country of origin, images, category, description, packaging information, margin, production cost, supplier details, colors, or variations.

Depending on the industry you are in, your list of product attributes might include things such as certifications (“certified organic”, “GMO-free”), taste or feel (“sweet”, “soft”), ingredients, or marketing claims (“long-lasting”, “top-rated”, “popular choice”).

For example, let’s say you are in charge of an e-commerce business that is selling posters on Shopify, a popular e-commerce platform.

On Shopify, your products, i.e. the posters you are selling can have different attributes and variations, such as price, color, size, and paper thickness. But there is a lot of information about your products that you cannot store on Shopify, such as your product ID, Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), suppliers, inputs (materials or ingredients), production cost, margin, or required packaging materials.

This is where your product database comes in: it’s a searchable database that stores all attributes about your products.

Product Databases in Excel

More often than not, businesses set up and maintain their product database or product catalogs in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

While these spreadsheet-based solutions are a natural starting point, especially for smaller businesses, a word of caution: these spreadsheets tend to have a life of their own and typically create problems, such as:

1. Version Confusion:
Different departments or users have their local copy of the spreadsheet (“ProductDatabase_NEW”, “Product Database – v2.1”, “Old Product Database – DO NOT USE”, etc.)

2. Lack of Version and Access Control:
Without clear ownership or version control, changes made by staff can be lost or duplicated, especially if the person responsible for updates leaves the company and a new person takes over.

3. Data Inconsistencies:
Comments, highlights, and overwrites (how about we mark out-of-stock products in red?).

4. Security Breaches:
Spreadsheets cannot be easily secured or protected from unauthorized access. Excel or Google Sheets do not directly support user roles, authentication, or granular access control.

Setting up your product database as a spreadsheet more often than not defeats its purpose of becoming your single source of truth.

Instead, you end up constantly fighting fires and cleaning up spreadsheets. That’s why we recommend creating a proper product database.

Free Product Database Template App

Preview the Template App

How to Create a Product Database in 3 Steps

Let’s map out the steps to create a product database.

Step 1: List Out All Product Attributes

To build your product database, you first want to create a complete list of all product attributes and define your data structure.

Take the list above as an example and think about what matters to your business, your customers and your employees as they are dealing with products. Your database is supposed to be a “single source of truth” about your products, so make sure it is as complete as possible.

A good source of inspiration for defining the right product attributes is listening to your customers: what are the most common questions they ask about your products?

Must-have items in your list are typically:

• Product Name
• Product Description
• Unit Price
• Ingredients or Materials
• Size(s)
• Weight
• Colors
• Category
• Supplier
• Discontinued

Once you have your list of attributes, move on to step 2.

Step 2: Define Choices For Each Attribute

In the second step, wherever possible, define choices for each attribute. This will introduce consistency into your database.

For example, if you are dealing with products that come in different widths, define whether you would like to express width in centimeters, millimeters, or inches. Or, if you require inches for your American customers and centimeters for your European customers, store both in your database, but in separate columns.

Similarly, for colors, it is recommended to define possible choices: green, blue, yellow, etc. If you need to be more granular – dark green, forest green, and olive green – make sure to define these choices as well.

The advantages of defining choices are data consistency, clean data, and avoidance of errors.

With steps 1 and 2 completed, you should now have a table that looks something like this, but with your own product attributes in row 1, and with pre-defined choices in row 2 (to the extent this is applicable).

In Step 3, we will create the product database.

Step 3: Create Your Product Database

Now it’s time to create your database.

To create your product database in Five, follow these steps:

1. Sign up for free access.
2. Create a custom product database (or start with our template below).
3. Add forms to your database.
4. Create unique user logins for internal staff, external suppliers, or business partners.

Follow the steps described in this video tutorial to build your database tables, forms, and reports:

Product Database: Free Sample Application

Check out this sample product database which we created in just 15 minutes and that stores product attributes in an intuitive web interface.

The Product Database Schema

Here’s the database schema for our application.

The database schema consists of several interconnected tables:

1. At its heart is the Product table, storing information about products and their attributes;
2. The Category table helps us make sense of our products and the categories they belong to.
3. The Supplier table is another critical piece of our database schema: it lets us associate products with suppliers and allows us to notify our business partners when inventory runs low.

Each table holds specific information, such as product descriptions, unit prices, supplier information, or product categories. This ensures a comprehensive and organized structure of our product data. The relationships between these tables facilitate efficient product management.

This database schema supports a web app designed to streamline the process of organizing, tracking, and managing your products and inventory.

Built on a robust database structure, our sample app provides comprehensive features to handle every aspect of your product data, from detailed product descriptions to supplier information and category management.

Product Database: Key Features

Here are some of the key features of our product database.

1. Product Catalog Management:
Easily add, update, and track your products with fields for names, descriptions, prices, stock levels, and more.

2. Category Organization:
Group your products into categories for better organization and faster navigation.

3. Supplier Integration:
Maintain detailed records of your suppliers, including contact information and addresses, ensuring smooth supply chain management.

4. Real-time Updates:
Keep your inventory data current with date stamps for when products and supplier information are added or updated.

5. Advanced Search and Filtering:
Quickly find products or suppliers with powerful search and filtering options.

6. User-Friendly Interface:
Intuitive design makes it easy for anyone to use.

7. Comprehensive Data Handling:
Manage all your product-related information in one place.

8. Scalable Solution:
Our product database is suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small retailers to large enterprises.

9. Reliable Performance:
The product database application is built on a stable and efficient database structure to ensure smooth operation.

Five gives you a ready-to-use and fully customizable web application that can be used as a product database.

Of course, there is a lot more that you can add to your database, such as unique user roles (read-only roles or supplier roles with limited database access, for example), logins and authentication, or email notifications to alert suppliers when their products are running low on stock.