What Are the Benefits of Digital Product Catalogs?

A digital product catalog is an incredibly powerful tool for your organization. It’s often described as a digitized version of a print catalog, but it’s much more than that. 

What Is a Digital Product Catalog?

A digital product catalog is a tool that allows brand manufacturers, their teams, and distributors to have access to up-to-date, accurate product content that’s readily available and easy to use. 

A digital product catalog allows you to:

• Create custom catalogs on the fly;
• Filter products based on certain attributes; 
• Showcase your products to sales representatives in a clean, easy to use manner; and
• Provide access to product information to your entire organization.

In short, digital catalogs should be a critical tool in your commerce toolkit. Here’s a breakdown of five benefits of digital product catalogs.

5 Benefits of Digital Product Catalogs 

1. Digital Product Catalogs Allow for Competitive Advantage

Not all retailers are digitally equipped, and for brand manufacturers who sell across retailers of all sizes, being able to provide product assortment in a clean, easy-to-use manner makes a significant impact on growing relationships with retailers.

Take Soft-Tex, a bedding and mattress company, who have seen customers increase orders by 300% because of the ease of use of Digital Catalogs. How did they achieve this growth?

By giving the buyer access to the digital catalog, it takes the guesswork out for their sales people and makes Soft Tex a stronger and easier to work with partner than other suppliers.

Source: Salsify Youtube

2. Expand Inventory Availability With ERP Connected Drop Shipping

For brand manufacturers who work with small independent retailers, like mom and pop shops, the digital product catalog can be used to enable them with digital commerce capabilities they’re unable to afford otherwise.

Gerson, a seasonal and home decor manufacturer, wanted to find a way to provide expanded inventory and drop ship availability to the 40% of their customers who are independent retailers.

By connecting their enterprise resource planning (ERP) to a digital catalog, Gerson created a way to increase sales: customers are now able to order directly off the digital product catalog, that has up to-date inventory, and have those products sent directly to the consumer.

Retailers can now: 

• Expand their inventory; 
• Increase margins; and 
• Have online ordering capabilities.

3. The Ability to Sell Discounted or Overstocked Inventory

Creating a catalog solely for inventory you’re hoping to sell off provides customers the ability to order older models or discontinued products at a fraction of the original price. 

This gives your brand more time to focus on new products and growing revenue. 

4. Global Access to Product Information and High-Res Images

For brand manufacturers who have ownership and oversight of their factories overseas, it can be a challenge to communicate effectively about products. 

Language barriers coupled with not knowing who needs access to product information can be overcome with digital product catalogs and high-resolution images.

Gerson’s workers in China use tablets and digital catalogs to verify inventory on the factory floor — this was impossible to accomplish with their expensive ERP that hindered product information sharing.

Switching From Print Catalogs to Digital Product Catalogs

Ridding your company of print catalogs is beneficial from a variety of perspectives:

• You’ll save thousands of dollars by not printing bi-annual catalogs.
• Your catalog will always be up-to-date. 
• You can release more products. 

Without having to work on a bi-annual schedule of product releases, using a digital product catalog allows your brand to be more agile in product releases. If a product is ready for customers — release it.

With the right digital product catalog, you’ll make everyones’ lives easier with up-to-date, accurate, easily accessible product content.

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