How manufacturers share product catalogs with resellers
Most manufacturers still share catalogs the hard way: a spreadsheet per partner, emailed on request, out of date the day after it's sent. This guide walks through the workflow that replaces it — prepare one clean catalog, approve each reseller, control exactly what they see and pay, and deliver current data from a single shared workspace. A fictional manufacturer and reseller carry the example end to end.
1. Introduction
Throughout this guide we follow a fictional example: manufacturer Harbor Ridge Furnishings sharing its Furniture catalog with reseller Oak & Main Interiors — approved from a marketplace request, assigned the dealer-tier catalog, with one restricted category excluded and dealer pricing applied. All companies, SKUs, and prices shown are fictional demo data.
The workflow runs on Catalog Sharing, and every step below maps to it:
2. What reseller catalog sharing means
Catalog sharing is a managed relationship, not a file transfer. The manufacturer and each reseller are distinct companies on the platform; sharing means granting a reseller's company access to a specific catalog, shaped by the rules you set. The reseller works from their own portal view of your data — you never fork a copy for them.
That single decision — access instead of attachments — is what keeps every partner current: there is one catalog, and everything a reseller sees, downloads, or orders against is generated from it. Resellers can find you two ways: you invite them directly, or they discover your catalogs on the InventaCloud Marketplace and request access.
3. Prepare the product catalog
Sharing amplifies whatever you share — clean or messy. Start from imported product data (CSV and Excel files are the standard import path; see mapping CSV columns to catalog fields), review the AI mapping suggestions, and build the catalog you intend partners to receive. The broader flow from file to shared catalog is covered on How It Works.
4. Organize product data, pricing, inventory, and images
Four ingredients decide whether a reseller can actually sell from your catalog:
Standardized fields, consistent categories and brands — managed in Product Data Management.
Cost, price, MSRP, and MAP populated per product — the raw material reseller pricing rules compute from.
Stock levels resellers can rely on, kept current through Inventory & Price Sync.
Product photography attached to the right SKUs — see Product Images.
5. Choose the catalog to share
Access is granted per catalog, so decide the unit of sharing first. Harbor Ridge keeps one approved Furniture catalog for the dealer channel; its other catalogs simply never exist from a furniture dealer's perspective.
6. Add or approve the reseller
Two doors into the relationship: invite a reseller you already work with directly, or approve an access request that arrives from the marketplace. Either way, approval is your decision — no reseller is added automatically.
7. Organize repeating terms as a dealer-tier catalog
If a reseller's terms will repeat across partners, put the terms on a configured catalog and assign each partner to it. Harbor Ridge maintains a Furniture — Interior Dealers catalog (configured by Harbor Ridge — tiers aren't auto-generated) whose rules carry the dealer pricing and product scope; assigning Oak & Main that catalog applies the terms from the first minute, and the eleventh interior dealer costs nothing extra to configure. A one-off partner with genuinely unique terms gets a separately configured catalog instead; the trade-offs are covered in the Catalog Rules guide.
8. Grant access to the catalog
Assign the dealer catalog to Oak & Main and access begins: the catalog appears in their portal with its rules already applied. Ending access is just as clean — unassign the catalog and it disappears from their portal, with no forwarded files left in the wild to chase down.
9. Apply product-access rules
Product-access rules decide which products the catalog includes at all: include by product, brand, or category, then carve out exclusions. Exclusions win over inclusions. Harbor Ridge's dealer catalog excludes the restricted Contract-Only category from dealer view.
The full rule model — filters, exclusions, rule ordering, preview — is Catalog Rules.
10. Apply reseller pricing and review it against MAP
Pricing rules compute the catalog's delivered numbers from your price roles — typically a percentage adjustment over a base role — and MAP travels alongside as a supplied price field, so partners always have the current floor beside their price. The rules engine applies exactly the arithmetic you configure and does not compare its results with MAP, so reviewing the calculated output against your MAP values is part of the setup — a calculated price that lands below the floor gets fixed at the source before the catalog is shared. How a reseller prices on their own storefront remains their responsibility under your agreement.
11. Choose an approved delivery method
Resellers pull the catalog in the shape their systems need. Each method below delivers the rule-applied result — the same products and prices the portal shows.
| Method | What it is | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Excel (.xlsx) | Downloadable catalog files | The universal spreadsheet format — every downstream system imports it. A delivery format, not a direct connection to a reseller's ecommerce platform. (Reseller inventory exports also come as CSV.) |
| JSON | Structured export for developers | Delivery and export only — InventaCloud does not import JSON catalogs. |
| API | Programmatic catalog access | Read and delivery scope: a reseller's systems fetch current catalog data on demand. |
| FTP | File transfer, where configured | Available where an FTP delivery or ingestion schedule has been configured for the account. |
The format-versus-delivery decision in depth: CSV vs JSON vs API vs FTP product feeds.
12. Verify the reseller view
Before telling Oak & Main their catalog is ready, look at it as they will. Browse the catalog with their rules applied and walk a short checklist:
- Products — Seating, Tables, and Lamps present; Contract-Only absent
- Prices — HRF-TABLE-220 shows the +20% dealer number, not cost
- MAP — HRF-LAMP-318's delivered price sits at or above the $105.00 MAP value (fixed at the source if it didn't)
- Images — spot-check that photos render on the products dealers browse first
- Inventory — stock figures present and plausible
- A downloaded file matches the portal view
13. Handle marketplace access requests
Once your catalogs are visible on the Marketplace, requests arrive on their own schedule. Each one opens a private thread with the requester — ask about their business, their channel, their volumes before deciding. Approve the good fits (assigning your dealer-tier catalog makes that a one-step onboarding); deny the rest politely, with a short note. Nothing is shared until you approve.
14. Communicate about catalog and order questions
Three conversation surfaces keep the relationship out of your inbox: direct messages between your team and each reseller, the marketplace request thread that started the relationship, and per-order threads on purchase orders — so a question about order pricing lives with the order it concerns (see Purchase Orders and Chat & Collaboration). When resellers start ordering from the catalogs you share, the full order loop — drafts, submission, vendor inbox, statuses, and threads — is walked end to end in the B2B purchase-orders guide.
15. Review reseller activity
Distribution you can't see is distribution you can't manage. Reseller activity shows who is pulling catalogs and what they're viewing — enough to spot the partner who downloaded once in March and went quiet, and the one pulling fresh data weekly. Use it to time check-ins, not as a guarantee of sell-through: activity tells you a reseller is engaging with the catalog, not what happens after.
16. Process future price, inventory, and discontinued-item updates
The share isn't a snapshot. When your costs, stock, or lineup change, update the source data and the platform carries it through:
Discontinued items are flagged with dates rather than silently vanishing, so partners can plan instead of scramble. Price and inventory update paths are covered under Inventory & Price Sync.
17. Common catalog-sharing mistakes
A reseller's first impression of your catalog is permanent. Populate pricing roles, inventory, and images before granting access — not after the first complaint.
Ten dealers with ten hand-copied catalogs is maintenance debt. If the terms repeat, configure one dealer-tier catalog and assign every partner on those terms to it.
The gap between the rule you meant and the rule you built shows up in front of a partner unless you preview first. Two minutes of checking beats an awkward email.
If the price changed in a PDF but not in the catalog, every downstream pull is now wrong. Update the source — the catalog then delivers the current data everywhere partners look, and a message thread note covers anything they must acknowledge.
18. Manufacturer sharing checklist
- Catalog imported, mapped, and reviewed
- Product data, pricing roles, inventory, and images populated
- The catalog to share chosen deliberately — and only that one assigned
- Reseller invited or marketplace request reviewed and approved
- Dealer-tier catalog assigned where terms repeat
- Product-access rules and exclusions applied
- Pricing adjustment confirmed against the intended base role
- MAP values populated — and calculated prices reviewed against them
- Reseller view previewed — products, prices, images, inventory
- Delivery format agreed with the reseller
- Update workflow understood: change the source, let the platform deliver it
Common questions
Can different resellers receive different products and prices?
Yes — by assigning different catalogs. Rules belong to a catalog and deliver one result to everyone assigned it, so different terms live on separately configured catalogs: a dealer-tier catalog for standard partners, another for trade terms, each with its own rules and its own assignments.
Do I have to list my catalogs on the public marketplace?
No. The marketplace is one door in; direct invitations are the other. You can keep catalogs off the marketplace entirely and share them only with resellers you invite yourself.
What formats can resellers use to receive the catalog?
CSV and Excel downloads, JSON export for developer workflows, API access within its read and delivery scope, and FTP delivery where it has been configured for the account. Every method delivers the same rule-applied result the portal shows.
What happens when my prices or inventory change after I share a catalog?
Update the source data and the catalog rebuilds with rules re-applied; resellers see the current result whenever they visit — each catalog shows its latest update date in their portal — and their next download or feed pull carries the updated data. Discontinued items are flagged with dates so partners can plan around them.
One catalog. Every reseller current.
Start a 14-day free trial and share your first catalog — onboarding call included on every vendor plan.