ProductCatalogs.ai

A product went missing

A Missing Product in a Supplier File

A supplier's new price file doesn't list a product you sold last week. That's not the same as the supplier telling you it's discontinued — but if your process treats every update as a full replacement, the two look identical, and the product disappears either way.

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Why this matters

A supplier's export sometimes just omits a product — a filter on their side, a formatting error, a SKU that got renamed. If your catalog is rebuilt from the new file every time, that quiet omission becomes a quiet deletion, and the first person to notice is usually a customer asking why they can't find it.

A safer process

Turn the update into a clear decision.

  1. 1Compare the new file against your current catalog by SKU, not by row position.
  2. 2Treat anything missing from the new file as a flag, not an automatic removal.
  3. 3Check whether the supplier's update notes or communication actually says the product is discontinued.
  4. 4If there's no confirmation either way, leave the product active and keep selling it until you hear otherwise.
  5. 5Record the decision, so the same product isn't re-flagged and re-decided every time a file comes in.

Review checklist

Before you approve.

  • Missing-from-file is never treated as the same signal as marked-discontinued.
  • A missing product stays active by default until a person decides otherwise.
  • The comparison uses a stable identifier, not row order or position in the file.
  • A missing product that turns out to be a supplier error is easy to restore without rebuilding the whole catalog.
  • The decision, once made, is remembered so it doesn't reset on the next file.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't a missing product usually just discontinued?

Often, yes — but 'usually' is exactly the assumption that lets the occasional real mistake through. The cost of checking is small; the cost of quietly dropping a product you still sell is a customer who can't find it and a sale you didn't know you lost.

What if the supplier confirms it later?

Then you approve the removal at that point, with a real reason attached, instead of guessing on file-comparison day.

Check your own supplier file before anything changes.

Start with one CSV or Excel file. ProductCatalogs.ai shows the risky changes and keeps the current catalog protected until you approve.

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