How to get your product catalog discovered on the InventaCloud Marketplace

1. Introduction

Throughout this guide we follow a fictional manufacturer, Meridian Atelier Lighting, listing its Architectural Lighting Collection catalog on the marketplace, where a fictional reseller, North Coast Design House, discovers it and requests access. Every company, catalog, SKU, price, request, message, and date shown is fictional demo data.

The platform pieces behind this workflow: the InventaCloud Marketplace, Catalog Sharing, and Catalog Rules. If you're curious what the journey looks like from the reseller's chair, the reseller-side guide covers it — this one stays on your side of the counter.

2. What marketplace catalog discovery means

Being discoverable means your company and the catalogs you choose to list appear on the public marketplace, where resellers browse and search. A listing is a shop window: it shows enough for a reseller to decide whether to ask — it is not the catalog itself.

Two switches control it, and both must be on: a company-level master switch — List my company on the marketplace — and a per-catalog Listed on marketplace toggle. Turn the master switch off and nothing shows, whatever the per-catalog settings say. That layering is deliberate: you can prepare catalog listings quietly, then open the storefront when you're ready.

3. Discovery is different from catalog access

The marketplace separates being seen from being served. Discovery shows a public preview; access — the reseller browsing your full permitted data at their pricing — only exists after you approve their request:

Nothing about listing a catalog shares your reseller pricing, your cost roles, or your full product rows with the public. Those stay behind the approval gate, governed by the same Catalog Sharing controls as a reseller you invite directly.

4. Before creating a marketplace listing

A listing is only as good as the catalog behind it. Before flipping any switches, make sure the foundation is ready:

The last point matters more than it looks: a marketplace listing generates requests from strangers, and a request that sits unanswered is a first impression too.

5. Prepare your company profile

Your company page is the storefront around your catalogs — the marketplace calls it exactly that. It carries a small set of fields, and short limits keep everyone honest:

Write the tagline for a reseller scanning a results page, and the description for one deciding whether to request access. Save with Save storefront; while the master switch is on, your page header shows the live state — how many catalogs are currently listed, or that the storefront is paused.

6. Choose which catalog to make discoverable

Listing is per catalog, and that's a strategic lever. Meridian has three catalogs but lists only the Architectural Lighting Collection — the line it wants new dealers on — while its contract and closeout catalogs stay off the marketplace, shared only with partners Meridian invites directly. Each catalog's Listed on marketplace toggle is independent, so your public range and your actual range don't have to match. Start with the catalog you most want new resellers carrying; you can list the others any time.

7. Confirm catalog title, brand, and description

Each listed catalog gets its own card on the marketplace. The card carries the catalog's name, brand, a short summary, and the practical facts resellers filter by:

The summary is your 300-character pitch — lead with what the line is and who it's for. Inventory type (stock, made-to-order, or mixed), dropship availability, and ship-from country are facts resellers filter on, so set them accurately rather than optimistically.

8. Review categories and product counts

Listing cards also show the catalog's item count and its top categories (a handful appear on the card, with a “more” badge for the rest) — both drawn from your actual catalog data. This is where clean imports pay off publicly: if your category column arrived messy — Pendants, PENDANT, and Hanging Lights as three “categories” — that's what the marketplace shows. Review the card with a stranger's eyes before listing; if the categories or counts look wrong, fix the catalog data itself (see the import guide) rather than living with a confusing card.

9. Prepare product images where supported

Listed catalogs can show sample product images — a small gallery of items on the card and the catalog's detail view. The images come from your catalog's matched product imagery, so the work you did in organizing images and matching them to SKUs is what makes a listing visual. One protection worth knowing: for resellers who haven't been approved yet, sample images render as a protected preview — blurred, stamped Preview only — so the public sees enough to be interested without harvesting your imagery. A catalog with no matched images simply shows a note that item previews aren't available yet; it still lists, just with less pull.

10. Make the catalog marketplace-visible

With the profile written and the card reviewed, going live is two switches: turn on Listed on marketplace for the catalog, confirm the company master switch List my company on the marketplace is on, and save. Your storefront header flips to show the live state and the listed-catalog count. The reverse is just as simple — pausing the master switch takes your whole storefront off the marketplace without touching any per-catalog setting, and existing approved resellers keep their access either way: listing controls discovery, not the private access you've already granted.

11. What resellers can see before requesting access

Keep a clear line in your head between what the public preview shows and what stays behind approval:

No pricing appears anywhere in the public preview — not list, not cost, not reseller. If a number matters commercially, it lives on the private side of this table.

12. How resellers find marketplace catalogs

Resellers browse the marketplace in two modes — a catalogs view and a suppliers view — with keyword search and practical filters:

Notice what that list implies: your discoverability is your data. The categories your catalog carries become the category chips you appear under; the inventory-type and dropship facts you set become the filters that include or exclude you. There is no paid placement, no sponsored slot, and no ranking to buy — the way to be found more is to list accurately and present well.

13. How per-catalog access requests work

When North Coast Design House decides it wants the line, it requests access — and requests are per catalog, not per company:

A reseller who wants several of your listed catalogs can send the requests together, but each catalog still arrives as its own request with its own status and its own decision. Requests come from resellers with their own marketplace account — reseller marketplace plans are priced on the marketplace page and are the reseller's side of the arrangement, not a cost to you.

14. Review the reseller''s request information

Incoming requests land in your Marketplace requests inbox in the vendor app, with tabs for All, Pending, Approved, and Denied and a count card for each state:

Illustrative inbox preview — all data fictional. Each request shows who's asking (name, email, company), which catalog they want, and when it arrived. Review opens the full request; already-decided requests carry a View action instead, so the inbox doubles as your decision history.

15. Review the optional request note

When requesting, resellers see a prompt — Tell the manufacturer about your store — with room for up to 2,000 characters. It's optional, so treat what arrives as signal:

A thoughtful note like this one (fictional) answers your first three questions before you ask them. An empty note isn't disqualifying — but it means your questions move to the thread, which is the next section.

16. Communicate through the request thread

Every request carries its own conversation thread — open the request and the exchange lives right there, with unread counts on both sides:

Use the thread before deciding — vetting questions, references, program terms — so the eventual approval or denial is informed rather than instinctive. The thread stays attached to the request permanently, which means the reasoning behind every access decision is on the record for whoever reviews it next year.

17. Approve a catalog-access request

Approving is one action with a precise effect: it grants North Coast access to the Architectural Lighting Collection — that catalog, exactly. If this is the reseller's first approval from you, the platform also creates the reseller relationship on your side and sends them an invitation to the reseller portal; every approval sends an approval email, carrying your response note when you add one. You can attach that note at decision time — “Welcome aboard; your rep is Dana” — and it travels with the notification. From the moment they sign in, they're a normal reseller in your world: same portal, same permitted view, same messaging as a partner you invited by hand.

18. Deny a catalog-access request

Denying is just as scoped — it declines that request, notifies the reseller by email (with your note when provided), and changes nothing else:

A denial with a reason in the note — “we're at capacity in your region this year” — costs thirty seconds and keeps the door open. And because a denied request can be approved later, “not yet” is a real answer, not a workaround.

19. What approval grants

It's worth being precise about the blast radius of an approval, because it's smaller than people assume:

Approval is not a master key. Each additional catalog needs its own request (or your own assignment from the vendor side). One more dependency to know: marketplace-sourced access rides on the reseller keeping their own marketplace plan active — if their plan lapses, marketplace-granted catalogs stop appearing for them until it's restored. Access you set up by direct invitation doesn't involve their marketplace plan at all.

20. How Catalog Rules affect permitted information

Approval opens the door; Catalog Rules decide what's inside the room. A marketplace-approved reseller sees the catalog's rule-applied result — the same permitted view any assigned reseller of that catalog gets:

Fictional example. Set the catalog's include/exclude and pricing rules before you list it, so the first approved reseller lands on the view you intend — the Catalog Rules guide covers building them.

21. Revoke catalog access where supported

Relationships change, and a granted catalog isn't granted forever. Opening a previously approved request gives you a Revoke access action: it removes that catalog from the reseller's portal and notifies them, while any other access they hold — other catalogs, other suppliers — remains untouched. On the record, the request returns to a denied state (there is no separate “revoked” status), and like any denial it isn't necessarily final: you can re-approve later if circumstances change. Use the request thread to say why — an unexplained disappearance generates a support conversation anyway, just an unhappier one.

22. Keep marketplace information current

A listing is a living surface — it shows your catalog's current state, so catalog maintenance and listing maintenance are mostly the same job:

23. Measure marketplace success honestly

The marketplace doesn't provide listing analytics — no impression counts, view tallies, or conversion dashboards — so measure what's real and in front of you: the requests that arrive (volume, quality, and where the resellers say they found you), the approvals you grant, and what approved resellers then do — browsing, downloading, messaging, and ordering activity you can see on your side of the platform. Those are engagement signals, not sell-through numbers; what a reseller sells in their own store happens outside InventaCloud. If request quality is high but volume is low, work the presentation (sections 5–9); if volume is high but quality is low, sharpen the tagline and summary so the right resellers self-select before requesting.

24. Common marketplace-listing mistakes

25. Marketplace-listing checklist

Common questions