AP-015
A client asks the agency to reorganise a category that has become difficult to use.
The request can sound straightforward.
The products already exist and the problem is visible: the category needs a better structure.
Then the agency looks at what would actually have to change.
Products have already been assigned according to the existing structure. Filters depend on attributes that were created around it. Related products may rely on the same classifications and attributes, while other categories may depend on the same organising rules.
What first appeared to be one structural change starts reaching further into the catalogue.
This does not happen with every catalogue problem. Some changes really are contained.
But when a catalogue has already been built around a structural decision that now needs changing, the agency is no longer dealing only with the place where the problem became visible.
It is dealing with everything that structure has already affected.
Catalogue structure problems often arrive through something the client can see.
A category contains products that no longer seem to belong together.
Filters do not help shoppers narrow the range properly.
Two similar groups of products use different attributes.
A growing range no longer fits comfortably into the categories created when the catalogue was smaller.
The requested improvement may sound limited because the visible problem is limited.
“Can we reorganise this category?”
“Can we improve these filters?”
“Can these products be grouped more clearly?”
Those are reasonable ways to describe what the client sees.
Sometimes they are also reasonable descriptions of the required change. If the change affects only a small part of the catalogue and little else depends on it, the agency may be able to make the improvement without changing much else in the catalogue.
The problem changes when the existing catalogue has already followed the structure that now needs correcting.
Catalogue structure is not only something shoppers see in navigation.
It influences how products are organised and how different parts of the catalogue connect.
A category decision affects which products appear together.
An attribute can determine how shoppers are able to filter the range.
A classification decision can influence where products appear and which alternatives are easy to compare.
For the shopper, those elements work together: categories narrow the range, filters refine it and attributes help make products comparable. A structural problem that becomes visible at one point in that buying path can therefore involve catalogue decisions made elsewhere.
Over time, new products are added according to those existing decisions.
The structure becomes part of the way the catalogue operates.
That matters when the agency later decides the structure should change.
Improving the category is no longer just a matter of deciding what a better category should look like. The agency also needs to understand what else in the catalogue now depends on that structure.
The catalogue has accumulated products and relationships around the decision the agency is now being asked to change.
Imagine an agency establishes that a product range should no longer be divided into the categories currently being used.
Designing the replacement structure may be relatively straightforward.
Applying it may not be.
Someone needs to identify which products belong in the new structure.
Products that previously sat together may now need separating.
Products in neighbouring categories may need moving.
Filters based on the previous grouping may need reconsidering.
Attributes that worked under the old structure may no longer support the way shoppers need to narrow or compare the new groups.
Before the agency can confidently make the change, it first needs to establish how far the existing decision reaches.
The same thing can happen with an attribute structure.
Changing one attribute name may take seconds.
But if that attribute is used across hundreds of products and feeds filters or comparisons, the effort is not the field-name change itself.
The agency first has to establish where the attribute is used, which products should follow the revised structure and what else depends on those values.
The structural problem was visible in one place.
Its consequences were not necessarily confined there.
This creates an important distinction between the problem the client sees and the catalogue scope the agency may need to change.
A broken filter may be where the issue becomes obvious.
Correcting it may require changing the product attributes that feed that filter.
An awkward category may be the visible problem.
The required change may extend to products distributed across several parts of the catalogue.
The individual structural decision may still be simple.
What makes the correction expensive is how much of the existing catalogue has already been organised around that decision.
As the affected scope grows, the amount of agency effort required to carry the corrected structure through the catalogue can grow with it.
Catalogue size can make this more significant, but size by itself does not create the problem.
A large catalogue with a coherent structure may still allow a contained change.
A much smaller catalogue can still require extensive correction if products and catalogue relationships have been organised around a structure that now needs to be replaced.
The relevant question is how much of the catalogue depends on the structure being changed.
Clients naturally describe catalogue problems from the point where those problems become visible.
If shoppers cannot narrow a category effectively, the client may ask for the filters to be improved. If products seem badly grouped, the request may focus on reorganising the category.
The agency has a different question to answer.
It needs to establish what else in the catalogue depends on the structure behind the visible problem.
If the agency estimates the change only from the element where the problem appears, it may be estimating the visible correction rather than the full affected scope.
A structural catalogue correction can involve two different kinds of effort.
The first is deciding what should change.
The second is carrying that decision through everything already built around the old structure.
The first part can sometimes be small.
The second can be where most of the effort sits.
The agency may already know what the new structure should be. The larger effort can lie in identifying and changing what depends on the old one.
That can mean finding affected products, determining how they should now be organised, changing attributes or classifications and checking that the resulting groupings, filters and comparisons still make sense after the change.
The cost appears because the structural decision being corrected has already spread through the catalogue.
A structural catalogue problem is not fully described by the place where it first appears.
The real scope of the correction is everything the existing structure has already affected.
If only a small part of the catalogue depends on the structure, the correction may remain small.
If many products, attributes and filters depend on it, the amount that has to change grows with them.
Poor structure becomes expensive when correcting the structural decision also means carrying that correction through what the catalogue has already built around it.
When an agency is asked to correct a structural catalogue problem, the visible request should not automatically define the scope.
Before estimating or presenting the engagement, the agency needs to understand what structural decision is actually being changed and where that decision is already used.
That does not mean every category change requires a catalogue-wide investigation.
The response should be proportionate to the likely reach of the problem.
A genuinely contained change can remain contained.
But where products, attributes, filters or other catalogue relationships may depend on the existing structure, the agency should establish that affected scope before treating the request as a simple local correction.
This also creates a clearer client conversation.
Rather than saying that a change is “more complicated than it looks,” the agency can explain why the scope is larger.
The category change itself may be straightforward.
The additional effort lies in identifying what else in the catalogue currently depends on that category structure and ensuring those affected parts follow the change.
That distinction helps the agency define the engagement according to the catalogue that actually exists rather than the isolated problem through which the request first arrived.