Excel is a great product master. It is a terrible catalogue.

01

Quick verdict: Catafy vs Excel

Excel is the best tool most businesses have for maintaining a product master — and the worst tool for showing it to a buyer. A spreadsheet forwarded on WhatsApp is a grid of codes and numbers with no images, no context, one price for everyone, and no way to order except messaging back. Catafy does not ask you to give up the sheet. It imports it — images, variants, attributes and all — and turns it into a catalogue that is OTP-gated, tracked by buyer, and orderable in two taps. Keep Excel as the import format; stop using it as the catalogue.

02

What each is built for

A spreadsheet is built for the person who maintains it. Rows, columns, formulas, filters — it is an excellent working document for stock, costing and price revisions. Sent to a buyer, it becomes a puzzle: which column is my price, what does this code look like, what is the minimum, how do I order. The salesperson ends up explaining the sheet on a call, and the order comes back as a message to be retyped.

Catafy is built for the buyer. The same data becomes a visual catalogue with photos, videos, variants and sets; catalogues can be public, private or semi-private; trade buyers verify by OTP and see the price list for their group; MOQ and minimum order amount apply at checkout; live analytics show who is browsing; and orders trigger automatic updates on WhatsApp, SMS, email and push. Bulk Excel import — including embedded images and custom attributes — is how the sheet gets in, and how bulk updates get in later.

03

Catafy vs Excel for wholesalers

A wholesaler’s sheet usually has three or four price columns, and the wrong one gets sent at least once a week. On Catafy those columns become price lists per buyer group; the buyer sees only their own rate after OTP verification and seller approval. MOQ and minimum order amount are enforced at checkout, set and variant ordering is one line, and screenshot protection shields rates and designs.

• One catalogue, several rate cards — no more “which sheet did I send?”.
• Images with every code — buyers stop asking “what is item 4471?”.
• MOQ and MOA — per product and per order, applied automatically.
• Who opened it — live tracking by buyer and product.
• Orders as line items — no retyping from a message.

04

Catafy vs Excel for manufacturers

Manufacturers often run the product master in Excel or an ERP export and send dealers a filtered sheet per range. Catafy imports that master once, then releases each range as a private catalogue to approved dealers at dealer rates — with photos, screenshot protection, and live tracking of which dealer opened which design. Catalogue-access approvals go out automatically on WhatsApp from your own number. The sheet stays the internal working file.

05

Catafy vs Excel for distributors

Distributors juggle a sheet per brand and a rep per route, each forwarding their own edited copy. Catafy gives the distributor several catalogues from one imported inventory, collections per route or season, team seats for reps, per-segment pricing, live visitor tracking across the team, and automated confirmations on WhatsApp, SMS, email and push. One master, many catalogues, no forwarded copies.

06

Feature-by-feature comparison

What Catafy includes, and what the spreadsheet workflow actually gives a buyer.

07

Buyer experience: a grid vs a catalogue

A retailer opens a spreadsheet on a phone, scrolls sideways to find the price column, cannot see what code 4471 is, and messages you. On Catafy the same retailer taps a link from WhatsApp, verifies by OTP, sees photos with their own rate, filters to the category, orders sets and quantities with MOQ warnings inline, and gets a confirmation from your business number. Both run in the browser; the branded app is optional.

Send both to a real buyer and count the follow-up questions.

08

Keeping Excel where it belongs

Excel does not go away — it becomes the import and bulk-update format. Costing, stock planning and price revisions can stay in the sheet; when the numbers are final, import them. Buyers never see the grid again. Reports and orders can be exported back out when accounts or the ERP need them.

09

Moving from Excel to Catafy

This is the easiest migration on this site, because the data is already structured. Catafy’s bulk import reads product names, codes, categories, variants, custom attributes and embedded images. The onboarding call included on every plan covers the column mapping.

1. 1

   Clean the sheet

   One row per product or variant, columns for code, name, category, price, MOQ and attributes. This is the only time you tidy it.

2. 2

   Gather images by product code

   Put photos in a folder named by code, or embed them in the sheet — Catafy’s import reads both. AI Studio can enhance older shots.

3. 3

   Split price columns into buyer groups

   If the sheet has retailer / distributor / export columns, those become price lists per buyer group in Catafy.

4. 4

   Bulk import into Catafy

   Map columns, import with images and attributes, and check variants and prices on a sample.

5. 5

   Set catalogue modes and connect WhatsApp

   Choose public, private or semi-private, enable OTP, set MOQ and minimum order amount, and connect your WhatsApp Business number via Whaaty.

6. 6

   Share the link and keep the sheet for imports only

   Send the catalogue link on WhatsApp. Future updates are edits in Catafy, or a fresh import — never a forwarded file.

10

Pricing: Catafy vs the real cost of a spreadsheet catalogue

Catafy pricing is flat and public. Every plan includes unlimited orders, online payments with zero transaction fees from Catafy, and a 7-day free trial with no card required. Prices below are per month on annual billing, exclusive of 18% GST. Mobile, email and WhatsApp OTP login options for buyers are included on Growth and Scale; Starter uses a single login type.

A spreadsheet is free. The hours explaining it on calls, retyping orders from messages, chasing the wrong price column, and losing buyers who gave up on a grid are not. Compare that against a flat Catafy plan with no transaction fees.

11

How to decide in ten minutes

• Do buyers ask “what is this code?” after receiving your sheet?
• Have you ever sent the wrong price column to a buyer?
• Do orders come back as messages you retype into the sheet?
• Do you know who opened the last price list you sent?
• Do different buyers need different prices for the same product?
• Do you enforce minimum quantities, or explain them on calls?
• Would it hurt if your sheet reached a competitor?
• Do your buyers open files on phones, from WhatsApp?

If most answers are yes, the sheet is doing a job it was never built for. Import it into Catafy and keep it for what it is good at.

12

Related reading

• Cataloguing features →Bulk import, variants, videos, collections
• B2B catalogue features →Private pricing, MOQ, OTP access
• Live analytics →Who opened what, in real time
• AI product photography →Enhance product photos for the catalogue
• Digital catalogue and order management →How the pieces fit together
• Catafy vs PDF →If the catalogue is currently a PDF