Katavio: Sell more supplier products online with less upfront stock

Bonjour Product Hunt! 👋

I'm the founder of Katavio, and I wanted to share the story behind what I'm building.

I've spent over 20 years working in technology and e-commerce, but Katavio actually started with a hobby: developing and managing an online surf and skate shop.

I quickly discovered something frustrating.

Building an e-commerce website is one thing. Filling it with products is an entirely different challenge.

I've seen a single product take up to 10 minutes to prepare and publish. Finding images, gathering descriptions, entering prices, dealing with stock information... it all adds up.

And even if you overcome that challenge, independent retailers don't necessarily have the cash or space to hold more inventory.

Meanwhile, their suppliers already have extensive product ranges they'd love to sell.

That contradiction stuck with me.

What if independent retailers could offer more of their suppliers' products online, without having to buy and stock everything themselves?

That's how Katavio was born.

I'm building a B2B SaaS platform designed to help retailers and their suppliers work together to expand online product ranges, reuse catalogue information, and coordinate product availability, fulfilment and returns.

Where Katavio stands today 🚀

Katavio is currently in private beta, and there's still plenty of work ahead.

But we've already made some exciting progress:

Developed a working Shopify catalogue integration that reads supplier product data without modifying their stores.
Tested an initial retailer–supplier proof of concept.
Built the foundations of our product review and preparation workflows.
Started receiving encouraging interest from suppliers who see the opportunity to make more of their products available through independent retailers.

We're now developing the broader onboarding and publication experience to make Katavio ready for more partners.

I'm also building Katavio with the help of AI, which has been an extraordinary learning experience in its own right!

It's made things possible I wouldn't have imagined attempting alone just a couple of years ago.

Why am I sharing Katavio before it's fully launched?

Because I believe there's tremendous value in building alongside a community. I'm here to connect with other founders, share what I'm learning, exchange experiences and get honest feedback.

And if you're an independent retailer or supplier who recognises these challenges, I'd love to hear from you too.

We're interested in connecting with potential early partners as we continue developing the platform.

One question for the community:

Have you ever experienced a similar problem, where you knew the commercial opportunity existed but the operational barriers made it unnecessarily difficult to capture?

I'd love to hear your experiences!

Thanks for checking out Katavio and being part of the journey.

Alix

https://www.katavio.com