Are printed catalogs still a thing? They sure are: some people enjoy browsing for products in an old-fashioned way, others like the tactile experience of flipping through pages, and some just embrace the nostalgia of receiving a catalog in the mail. Yet, digital channels are slowly rising to the top as the preferred way of shopping. It's a tendency you can't overlook, and online catalogs can become a valuable tool to use in your favor and get ahead of the competition. Want to find out how? Then read on.
Digital catalogs, or online product catalogs, are an essential document for every ecommerce specialist. They represent a digital version of the classic paper catalog—its modern alternative, if you will. A digital catalog is a convenient collection of product data, neatly organized and readily available to brand owners, employees, and customers. Compared to print, it alleviates the sustainability concern and offers other significant benefits, which we will explore in this article.
Moore & Giles Leather Catalog
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🔹 Who uses digital catalogs? Basically, everyone! Retail stores, ecommerce websites, wholesalers, product manufacturers—and the varied target audiences these businesses have. You'll easily find an example in any industry you can think of, B2B or B2C. Regular consumers pick out home decor and custom clothes on a commute or as part of retail therapy. A company owner chooses an office property in a real estate catalog, while a doctor decides which patient care supplies to order through a medical brochure.
🔹 Why make digital catalogs? Digital catalogs effectively showcase products for potential buyers in a visual, well-organized way. By 2040, the ecommerce sector is predicted to account for 95% of all sales. And even today, 79% of shoppers purchase something online at least once a month. Going digital is a necessity for businesses that want to continue growing their sales and stay competitive. And online product catalogs are a stepping stone toward that goal.
🔹 What's inside a digital catalog? The core elements of an ecommerce catalog are product descriptions, images, and pricing. If the document comes in the PDF format, you can also add links and create a table of contents through bookmarks—and that's it. For the catalog to have interactive elements like videos, pop-ups, image galleries, and GIFs, you'll have to consider a different format. Look into flipbooks, for example—interactive digital publications based on PDF files that you can share as direct links or embed to your website.
Havwoods Catalog
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Needless to say, printing hundreds of catalogs does not make a good impact on the environment. Reducing paper waste is not only one of the latest digital marketing trends, but also a continuous courtesy to our planet. Even IKEA canceled their legendary product catalog several years ago and switched to a digital version. Online catalogs can help companies be more sustainable in today's eco-conscious world.
➡️ Read a success story on how digital catalogs helped Food Huggers, a food-saving product retailer, meet their sustainability goals.
The production and distribution of paper catalogs can take a toll on your budget: you'll be covering printing and shipping costs, maintaining inventory, replacing outdated catalogs or batches with typos, and so on. Online product catalogs eliminate these expenses. You can easily create catalogs for different languages and audiences, or switch from quarterly to monthly issues. This difference is critical for small businesses, where every penny counts.
Think of all the trade shows, events, and client presentations that sales professionals have to do. Carrying around heavy piles of paper catalogs, especially if the materials are 100+ pages long, can be a burden. The digital version is weightless: your salesforce could make it work with a single device. They might not even need an internet connection if they download the file beforehand—for example, to a dedicated mobile app. What's more, finding a relevant section in an online document would be much faster, which is perfect for impromptu pitches and on-the-spot sales.
➡️ Read a success story on how Moore & Giles, a luxury leather company, increased sales by making their catalogs digital and easily accessible.
How readers navigate a paper catalog is a mystery. How long do they read it for? Which products get the most attention? What pages are a waste of time and space? And even if you survey your customers on their preferences, you'll only record a fraction of their shopping habits. When it comes to data, digital catalogs have an undeniable edge over print. With built-in document analytics, you'll be able to track customer behavior, estimate demand, and make informed decisions to improve the content or the product catalog design.
Something that's been printed is set in stone: traditional catalogs do not allow for quick corrections or edits. On the contrary, you can update digital catalogs in real-time, without interrupting the business process. Even if there are no typos or mistakes, items inevitably become outdated or run out of stock. Going online gives you the freedom to change prices, introduce discounts, improve product descriptions, add new pages, and stay relevant at any given moment.
Yakima Catalog
Why is it beneficial to use digital catalogs, even for local businesses? Statistics show that 57% of online shoppers look for products internationally. They're not limiting themselves to their city, state, or even their country. Digital catalogs effortlessly reach more customers than print ones ever could. The documents are accessible from anywhere in the world, and you can easily share them on social media, by email, and through other marketing channels. Start offering shipping, and you have a brand-new client base that's ready to order.
➡️ Read a success story on how Pettacci, a fashion company, got more clients to view their catalogs by putting them online.
Digital catalogs can act as an independent sales tool, providing a worthy alternative to website shopping. With the right product catalog design, items are more visually attractive, and the look and sound of flipping pages makes the experience engaging and personal. People learn all they need about the variety of colors and models in a single space. Once they've made a choice, a single click takes them to the product's page on the website, adds the item to their cart, or connects them to a sales specialist. And then it's straight to check out.
A digital catalog can be much bigger than its print predecessor without compromising usability. You can add product categories and lists, and make them easily accessible via a table of contents and internal links. The flipbook format also offers a built-in search bar. If you want to try it out, look in the top right corner of the example below, click on the magnifying glass icon, and type in “camper”. You'll find the relevant page and product in no time, while looking for it manually would take ages.
Precious Moments Christmas Catalog
The touch, smell, and sound of a fresh paper catalog are quite nice and comforting. But other than that, print catalogs can't encompass all the details people need to make a purchase confidently. Online catalogs have the capacity of placing video reviews, pop-ups, GIFs, and image galleries for the readers to dive deeper into each product. And as for that nostalgic look and feel, flipbooks offer a compromise: they look like a print copy and provide a lifelike reading experience on the web.
Along with your digital document, you can also distribute its accessible version that would work for screen readers, improving the experience of a significant user group with special needs.
85% of consumers believe a company's mobile resources should be at least as good as, if not better than, their desktop versions. Users tend to switch from their laptop to a smartphone or a tablet during the course of the day. And they expect your catalog to look great on all of those screens. The undeniable benefit of a digital product catalog is the fact that the content is optimized for mobile devices, making it easy for customers to browse and shop on-the-go. Look into creating a mobile-friendly PDF or turn your document into a flipbook: it automatically adapts to the user's device.
A digital catalog gives you the opportunity to transform a simple presentation of your products into a profitable tool for marketing and sales. Ecommerce catalogs create an immersive and information-rich experience for online shoppers, moving them along in their purchasing journey. And they don't just benefit the customer: given the right format and structure, digital catalogs also open up a wealth of business opportunities.
We have been living in the digital era for over two decades now. Traditional and electronic commerce have both evolved in different yet highly related directions.
Ecommerce sales in the United States exceed $400 billion per year, so ignoring the new trends is not an option if we want to succeed in an incredibly competitive industry.
You might know what a print catalog is, but what is a digital catalog? Let us further elaborate on this matter.
A digital catalog is a simple collection of product data, images, prices, and information that potential customers can browse digitally.
Such catalogs are the digital versions of classic, print catalogs that have been around since the year 1872.
In short, a digital product catalog is a well-organized digital file that showcases all the products and services of a company as a printed catalog would, but digitally.
digital catalogSome of the biggest benefits of digital catalogs over printed catalogs are related to the fact that many businesses and online retailers have immediate access to product data on the catalog, which makes it easy to keep it up to date.
The benefits of digital catalogs are primarily enjoyed by online store retailers, sales and marketing teams, sales reps, and ecommerce stores that implement ecommerce catalogs.
The ultimate goal of a digital or electronic catalog is to provide customers with all the information they need regarding products or services in a simple and visual way.
Showcasing product images, product categories, product descriptions, and information about new products in a representative and digestible way improves customer experience and reinforces purchasing decisions.
Most digital product catalogs have features that remind us of a classic paper catalog or physical catalog.
The characteristics of digital catalogs might vary from one business to another, but as a general rule, most of them share common characteristics.
Common format for many digital catalogs and online magazines is PDF - it’s easy to read, and after downloading the file, no Internet connection is needed to open it again, which reminds customers of paper catalogs.
But besides PDFs, catalogs viewable directly on the brand website in the form of interactive flipbooks or even as a mobile app are a thing in today's digital world. They are more interactive than PDFs - often times including rich media like videos or GIFs.
As technology and new trends advance, business owners and teams have employed different marketing tools to adapt digital catalogs to them.
The design and style of digital catalogs are highly related to the tone of the brand.
The entire selection of products or services of a company is its voice, and digital catalogs should be in sync with what the company represents.
That’s why digital catalogs are not generalist tools and, instead, they are tailored to the personality and style of the business.
Digital catalogs consist of multiple pages with several product prices, descriptions, and inventory levels.
In order to maintain the attention of readers and potential customers, the pages of digital catalogs are varied and designed uniquely.
Most digital catalogs integrate robust search technology to quickly find products. In the case of a digital catalog, a simple and efficient text search allows customers to find products they are interested in within just a few clicks or taps.
One of the greatest benefits of printing catalogs in the past was the fact that product images led people to purchase certain products more frequently.
It has been proven that 83% of digital purchase decisions are influenced by images (source: Search Engine Journal), so harvesting the power of visuals in a digital catalog is a must to ensure their effectiveness.
Images in a digital product catalog have different sizes, distinguishable colors, and provide a smooth catalog experience that keeps customers visually hooked.
In a digital catalog, less can be more. The combination of complex and simple visual designs makes digital catalogs easier to scan and read.
Principal products, those that bring the most revenue to a company, usually have larger grids than “B” class products.
The combination of grid sizes helps customers easily distinguish between primary and complementary products in a natural way.
Variety is key when it comes to visual design, and it can be accomplished by turning the visual focus of products into a mix of both complex and simple layouts that showcase their relevance.
Most digital catalogs are not too short nor too long, but they all have an ending. Digital catalogs are finite, and when potential customers finish reading them, they should be satisfied with their content.
Setting an “end” to digital catalogs prevents product cannibalization and overwhelming customer experiences.
In ecommerce, the average attention span is just around 10 seconds, which creates the need to show a set of highlighted products in a visually attractive way to grab people’s attention.
The always-evolving world of digital marketing pushes us to replace print catalogs with digital catalogs. For many, making this change represents a big challenge, mostly if there isn’t a clear starting point.
Fortunately, with Heyzine, you can create custom catalogs that resonate with your brand’s style and personality.