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Catalog Builder

The catalog is what customers actually order from: a restaurant’s menu, a store’s product range, a supermarket’s departments. SuperApp uses one catalog system across all verticals, structured to fit each one. Catalogs can be built and edited from the admin panel (your team, centrally) or from the partner app (the merchant’s team) — changes publish to the customer app instantly.

Catalog structure

Section titled “Catalog structure”

A catalog is organized in three layers:

Category groups            e.g. "Food" / "Drinks", or "Fresh" / "Pantry"
└── Categories             e.g. "Pizzas", "Salads", or "Dairy", "Bakery"
    └── Items              the things customers buy
        └── Variants, options & add-ons
  • Category groups are the top-level sections customers see when browsing an outlet — useful for large catalogs; small menus can keep this layer minimal.
  • Categories organize items into browsable shelves. Their order is yours to control, and customers can jump between them.
  • Items are the products themselves.

Items

Section titled “Items”

Each item carries:

  • Name and description — what it is, written for customers.
  • Photos — high-quality images, managed through the platform’s image tooling. Items with good photos consistently outsell those without.
  • Pricing — base price, plus variant- and option-level price adjustments.
  • Variants — mutually exclusive versions of an item: pizza sizes, T-shirt colors, 1L vs 2L bottles. Each variant can have its own price.
  • Options and add-ons — extras and choices layered on top: toppings, sides, “no onions”, gift wrapping. See Options & add-ons for modeling these well.
  • Availability — in stock / out of stock, including timed re-enabling. See Availability.

Structuring by vertical

Section titled “Structuring by vertical”

The same building blocks fit each vertical differently. Patterns that work:

Restaurants — menus

Section titled “Restaurants — menus”
  • Category groups for meal sections: Starters · Mains · Desserts · Drinks.
  • Variants for sizes (Small / Medium / Large pizza), options for toppings and cooking preferences.
  • Short, appetizing descriptions and a photo per dish.
  • Keep the menu close to the in-house menu so kitchen staff aren’t translating between two systems.

Retail stores — product catalogs

Section titled “Retail stores — product catalogs”
  • Categories that mirror how the store is shelved: Skincare · Haircare · Vitamins for a pharmacy.
  • Variants for the product axes customers choose between — size, color, pack count.
  • Precise product names and descriptions (brand, size, strength) — retail customers search and compare rather than browse for inspiration.

Supermarkets — department-scale catalogs

Section titled “Supermarkets — department-scale catalogs”
  • Category groups as departments: Fresh Produce · Dairy & Eggs · Frozen · Household.
  • Categories per shelf within a department.
  • Consistent naming conventions (brand first, then product, then size) so search works well at thousands of items.
  • Lean on bulk editing and disciplined structure — supermarket catalogs reward upfront organization more than any other vertical.

Multi-language catalogs

Section titled “Multi-language catalogs”

If your marketplace runs in more than one language, item names, descriptions, and category names are translatable. Customers see the catalog in their app language where translations exist, falling back to your default language otherwise. Plan translation as part of catalog building rather than an afterthought — see Languages & currencies.

Instant publishing

Section titled “Instant publishing”

Catalog changes go live immediately:

  • Price changes, new items, photo updates, and availability toggles reflect in the customer app in real time — no publish step, no app update.
  • This is what makes day-to-day merchant self-service practical: an outlet that runs out of salmon disables it on the spot, and the next customer never sees it.

Who builds the catalog?

Section titled “Who builds the catalog?”

Both models work, and most marketplaces use a mix:

ApproachBest for
Operator-built (admin panel)Launch onboarding, quality consistency, merchants with low digital comfort
Merchant-built (partner app)Ongoing maintenance, price updates, availability, merchants who know their range best

A common pattern: your team builds the initial catalog to your quality bar during onboarding, then hands maintenance to the merchant with guidelines on photos and naming.

The two toolsets

Section titled “The two toolsets”
  • Admin dashboard — the full builder at Dashboard → Outlets → (outlet) → Menu: category groups, categories, items (name, description, photos, price, variants), add-ons, sorting, and multi-language fields.
  • Partner app — under Partner app → Manage, merchant staff get the item list with in-stock/out-of-stock availability toggles, plus category, category-group, and add-on screens for everyday edits. Access is permission-gated per staff member, so a merchant owner can give a shift lead stock toggles without full catalog control — see Users & Roles.

Practical guidance

Section titled “Practical guidance”
  • Photos before launch. A catalog without images underperforms badly; require them in your onboarding standard.
  • Model choices as variants/options, not duplicate items. “Pizza Margherita Small” and “Pizza Margherita Large” as separate items breaks reporting and clutters search — make size a variant.
  • Mind the category order. Put the money-makers and best sellers in the first categories customers see.
  • Audit periodically. Items that are permanently disabled, missing photos, or priced wrong accumulate quietly — a quarterly catalog review per outlet keeps quality up.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”
SymptomTry this
An edit isn’t showing in the customer appPublishing is instant — confirm the change was saved, and that you edited the right outlet’s catalog
Item exists but can’t be orderedCheck its availability toggle in Partner app → Manage — it may be marked out of stock; see Availability
Merchant staff can’t see the Manage screensCatalog access is permission-gated per staff member — the outlet owner/manager must grant it; see Users & Roles
Customers see the wrong languageUntranslated fields fall back to the default language — fill in the missing translations; see Languages & Currencies
Price changed but an open order shows the old priceBy design — catalog edits never alter orders already placed; use order editing for in-flight orders
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