Swedish furniture giant IKEA recently ended the publication of its printed catalog after its 70-year iconic run, changing it into a podcast. Quite a setback to the print renaissance. It puts the spotlight on ‘digital’ once again. As Konrad Grüss, Managing Director, Inter IKEA Systems BV explains, “Media consumption and customer behaviors have changed, and IKEA is already increasing digital investments while volumes and interest in the catalog have decreased.”
Relevancy has always been the secret weapon irrespective of the times we live in. So when everything has moved into the digital space, it makes perfect sense to bid adieu to the physical version of catalogs and send them out in their digital avatars. That’s what successful businesses have been doing for quite some time now. As per a survey by Frost & Sullivan, 69% of respondents are in favor of discontinuing print catalogs within five years.
There is undoubtedly a sharp decline in catalog readership and business owners, hastened by the ongoing pandemic, are wasting no time to switch to digital catalogs. The brighter side is that they are now discovering the amazing benefits of embarking on a digital journey while forging novel ways to save.
So if you are one of those who are caught up in the print versus digital dilemma with catalogs, we’ll give you a quick lowdown on why digital wins all the way.
As customers change the way they consume content and engage with brands, it makes perfect sense to alter ways to reach them. Digital catalogs not only save money that would be otherwise wasted on paper, printing, and postal services but save a massive amount of time too. Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus recently came out with its digital catalog, Neiman’s State of Mind oozing with engaging editorial stories while highlighting key pieces and brands of the season. Not only were they able to elevate the customer experience, but were also quick to reach them with little ado.
When you go the digital way, you have no reason to wait for fancy launches, elaborate debuts, and larger-than-life events. No matter where your customers are, you can forge deeper relationships by simply showcasing what you’ve got in the most endearing manner. Not to mention a radical shortening of time to market. With introducing new products often fraught with delays because of skill and resource availability, flawed workflow design, and lengthy production techniques, digital catalogs ensure quick time to market and revenue.
Your customers’ preferences keep changing. So you must make amends in your offerings too. For instance, you want to add a few items to the winter collection or just tweak some product specifications. You can do it all instantly. There are a multitude of design tools available now to help you change your product catalogs and send them out to your customers as many times as you want.
By being around with exactly what they need, you get to earn a few brownie points too along the way. Digital catalogs give you the velocity to quickly bring new offers to market. As part of the value chain, it is important that you review your product catalogs regularly from a continuous improvement perspective. Luckily, you can do it as often as you like.
When you plan an email campaign, it is important to see how it’s driving engagement and whether it’s influencing purchase decisions. You need tools to review your campaign success and how quickly it’s facilitating conversions. Today, eCommerce business owners are keener on choosing conversions over interactions and transactions over experiences. Digital catalogs allow you to achieve these without choosing one over the other.
When designed correctly, digital catalogs can win hearts and clicks. Digital catalogs are not the only contact consumers have with their favorite brands, but they serve as an important touch point for brands to build and nurture trust and credibility. An eCommerce platform such as ewiz commerce, powered by Artificial Intelligence or AI, comes with dashboards for perfect data visualization. It relies on analytics to tell you how your catalogs are performing, and can even help you create customized versions in just a few minutes.
That’s right! Search engines love catalogs, if they are enriched with high-quality content that appeals to their algorithms. They will improve your rankings and ensure that browsers around the world find you. The product information you include needs to be structured with the right tags. For instance, if you are creating catalogs for fitness enthusiasts, structure the information according to sportswear by brand, color, or gender instead of focusing based on fitness regime or sport they are interested in.
As Google aptly emphasizes, “Remember that SEO still matters for organic search. Make your product details, such as images and descriptions, appealing to your customers.” While creating product catalogs for your eCommerce business, make sure that the titles are short, but unique. Never copy descriptions directly from your manufacturer’s site but create your own unique ones in simple words and organically enriched with the right keywords.
There are B2B eCommerce platforms that come with automated product tagging features to increase the relevancy and engagement of your content while reducing bounce rate. It’s all really simple; consumers want to find things quickly and digital catalogs show them exactly what they want thanks to enticing product images and relevant metadata.
Digital catalogs are doing increasingly well in this new era of Artificial Intelligence and automation. Businesses use both to understand their markets and customers, enhance catalog visibility, and improve product discovery. AI keeps track of what customers like, what they actually end up buying, and what influences their choices.
Research shows a whopping 91% of consumers are likely to shop with brands that offer relevant offers and recommendations, while 80% would be happy to purchase from those that provide personalized experiences.
The right eCommerce platform will have technologies like AI at its helm to help you personalize catalogs that will transcend from being mere vehicles of year-over-year purchase cycles to becoming a bond strengthened with trust and affinity. It can help you make product recommendations as part of your upsell and cross-sell strategy too. For instance, if a customer is interested in buying sports shoes of a particular brand, then you can suggest activewear of the same brand. Alternatively, you may offer recommendations like - Often bought together with - and showcase relevant items such as socks and accessories.
Personalization is a great way to please your customers with persuasive products without being intrusive. As Frank Faricy, founder of XGen rightly sums it up, “Personalization is the most effective way of driving on-site conversion rate. What is personalization? It’s adapting an experience to match a consumer’s needs. Personalization is a way to segment the audience — then drive logic on what those consumers should be recommended.”
At ewiz commerce, we can help you create a personalized shopping experience that’s enjoyable for your marketing team and your customers. With the right content, videos, and images, we can help you drive your sales campaigns using the power of AI.
ewiz commerce is the world’s only B2B eCommerce platform with built-in AI-powered marketing tools to help you create personalized shopping experiences for your customers.
Some of our offerings to help you with catalog marketing capabilities:
Call us today to explore over 100 features for your unique business objectives, including creating appealing digital catalogs for your customers.
