Digital catalogs: The ultimate guide

Over 50% of shoppers in Europe browse digital catalogs at least a few times a month.

And yet, most retailers build digital catalogs the slow way, designing a print PDF first and converting after.

You don't have to anymore. You can now generate digital catalogs straight from your product feed. No PDF involved. And then update everywhere in one click wherever and whenever.

So, whether you're a seasoned catalog marketer or just getting started, it’s important to understand what a digital catalog is and how it benefits your business.

This guide covers what a digital catalog is, how the two build methods differ, what one costs and where it actually moves the needle on sales. First time or fiftieth, start here.

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What is a digital catalog?

At its heart, a digital catalog is an interactive, web-based version of a product catalog that shoppers browse on a website or on mobile.

It can be in the form of a digital booklet with horizontal flippable pages or, more recently, a vertical scrollable format. In either case, it works like a print catalog you can click (and track activity).

You have the same curated, page-by-page feel, as well as things paper can't do, such as video, shoppable product links, direct checkout and user data.

There are two ways to build one. Traditionally, you start with a print-ready PDF and turn it into an interactive online version.

There are many benefits, however, to switching to a digital-first strategy where you generate the catalog straight from your product feed or briefing data. This way the process from idea through draft and to published catalog becomes much, much shorter (from weeks or months to literal hours), and you can always turn it into a PDF at the end also.

Moreover, digital catalogs set up through your product feed also updates as your products and prices do. Never more do you have to stress about outdated prices, an old offer or an item out of stock.

You'll also see digital catalogs called other things: online catalog, digital brochure, online leaflet, ecommerce catalog. They mostly describe the same format, so in this guide we'll stick with digital catalog throughout.

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Digital catalog examples - PDF and feed-based

Here're example videos of two very different digital catalogs in action. One is PFD-based; the other is feed-based.

Tupperware - PDF-based

Harald Nyborg - Feed-based

If you're looking for even more examples, then you're welcome to dive into many more here.

How to create a digital catalog

PDF-based

Creating a digital catalog for your business is easier than you might think, assuming you already have a PDF of the catalog. In that case, here are the basic steps:

1. Find the right digital catalog creator software for your business

2. Upload the PDF to the software’s platform

3. Optional: Add interactive elements

4. Press “publish”

And that’s it.

See it done in one minute here:

Feed-based

Even easier, though, is to create the digital catalog straight from your product feed.

When your product feed is added and automations are created, you just need to upload briefing data to create a vertically-scrolling digital catalog. Our platform offers a variety of template designs that you can re-shape to your heart's desire, but you're also of course welcome to start from scratch.

The feed-based setup in iPaper is handled in Horizon, which you can read more about here.

Now, let’s dive into some more over-arching benefits and drawbacks of using digital catalogs.

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Benefits of digital catalogs

No matter if you create digital catalogs from a PDF or a feed, there are many benefits specific to certain businesses or use-cases. We put our best minds in a room for half a day and asked them to define some of the primary ones.

When they re-emerged, this is what they delivered, and they even brought receipts in the form of real customer points of view.

Reach new audiences

Digital catalogs are not limited by geography. Your catalog is accessible to anyone with an internet connection, allowing you to reach a global audience.

This expanded reach help you tap into new markets and increase your customer base.

Especially when you consider how easily you can set up themed digital catalogs that are tailor-made for a specific new audience, product category or season.

With digital catalogs, shoppers can browse the catalog anywhere, anytime."

David Gurita, E-commerce Digital & UX Design Lead, El Corte Inglés Portugal

Enhanced customer experience

Digital catalogs offer a more engaging product and customer journey that closely mimics both the experience and the results of shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. With features like interactive images, videos, and links, customers get a better understanding of available products rather than just that one thing they came to the site looking for.

Much like walking down the aisles of a real store, the digital catalog inspires shoppers to fill more items in the basket before leaving.

This enhances user engagement and provides a more interesting shopping experience, yes, and perhaps more importantly, it also increases everything from average basket size to time spent on site.

In short, customers get a better shopping experience and you get several new checkout options (from shop links to wishlist to direct checkout) that be used to actively generate conversions and revenue from the digital catalog.

We have basically transformed our traditional leaflet into an interactive and shoppable experience."

‍Ibrahim Shouehne, Digital Production Lead, Omnichannel, Carrefour MAF

Cost-effective and eco-friendly

Printing and distributing physical catalogs is expensive, and it's also quite the burden on the environment. Digital catalogs alleviate many of these concerns by reducing printing costs and minimizing carbon footprint. Simple as that.

For 1% of the cost of printing a catalog, we can create as many digital catalogs as we like."

José Antonio Del Pino, Senior Marketing Project Leader, Cristian Lay

Cater to a wider range of the customer journey

Many webshops are dominated by white-background grid views of endless products where the filter rules supreme. Typically shoppers enter straight to a product page, because that's where their search led them. Or worse, they're met with a wall of categories, nigh-on infinite products and nothing but a left-side filter to help them find what they're looking for.

That actually works well for precisely those shoppers that know exactly what they want. For everyone else, though, it's less than ideal.

(Not to mention the missed potential in all drive-through shoppers that could be inspired by a catalog to buy more than just what they were originally looking for.)‍

A digital catalog provides them a curated selection of products that makes online shopping easier, faster and less overwhelming.

It caters to a far wider range of the customer journey, and as such, digital catalogs rein in shoppers earlier, provide rich opportunities for them to be inspired to add items to basket and at the same time nudges the drive-through shopper who already knows what they want to consider additional offers they might otherwise not have been exposed to.

Better data and analytics

This one's a no-brainer. Digital catalogs naturally provide more and deeper insights into customer behavior. You can track which products are getting the most attention, how long customers spend on each page, which offers they click, which they don't click (which is often even more valuable) and much more.

Whether your a retailer, a webshop or something else entirely, the kind of close and immediate user data helps refine your entire marketing and product strategies for better results.

The more you know, the better you know and the better you perform.

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Drawbacks of digital catalogs

We may be biased, yes, but it's not like we're blind to some of the drawbacks. Our best minds did, therefore, also, though reluctantly, nail down some of those.

Creating enrichments can be time-consuming
(but it doesn’t have to be)

The interactive enrichments can also come with a downside. If the enrichments are created manually, it can be a cumbersome process that costs time and resources.

But, that's where iPaper's automation comes in. We can scan your PDF and automatically add enrichments based on your product data. Global retail chain, JYSK, saved up to 60 hours a week, which you can read more about here, if you want.

We wouldn't be biased, nor good at our jobs, would we, if we didn't turn at least one drawback into a benefit?

Having an extra channel to manage and maintain

For every channel that you add to your marketing mix, there’s some extra time spent on managing it, analyzing results and optimizing. There's no getting around that.

But as per the example with JYSK above, when done correctly, digital catalogs and the process behind creating and publishing them actually saves time, saves resources and decimates the majority of intermediate steps.

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Digital catalog marketing tactics

One way of making whatever time spent managing the digital catalog worth it, is to employ effective tactics to make it a success.

And the Store Metaphor can guide you and help you figure out which tactics to implement:

Here’s a list of proven digital catalog tactics to set you up for success:

Getting started

A 5-step framework for how to successfully run your first digital catalog campaign

3 straightforward ways to use digital catalogs in top funnel marketing

Engaging and converting

3 tips to make your digital catalog as engaging as possible

How to increase engagement by adding an extra layer to your digital catalog

8 simple elements to designing a digital catalog that converts

How to Use Online Catalogs to Increase Foot Traffic to Your Stores

Misc

How to optimize your digital catalog for SEO

Why and how you should highlight the last page more in digital catalogs

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Conclusion

A digital catalog is a powerful tool that provides something familiar, yet different, in the online shopping journey.

It enhances the customer experience, allows for easy updates, widens your reach, provides valuable analytics, and is cost-effective.

Like all digital channels, there are some downsides to digital catalogs, such as time spent managing the channel, if not setup up ideally, and/or adjusting to a new workflow.

However, the positives far outweigh the negatives, and there’s a ton of effective tactics that can set your digital catalog up for success.

So, what're you waiting for?

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