Over the last decade, the migration from print to digital catalogs has transformed B2B platforms. Most modern buyers expect digital solutions, and the rise of e-commerce has also ushered in the necessity of easy, convenient browsing and purchasing. The writing is on the wall: you need a high-quality, descriptive, polished digital catalog to build sales and increase the visibility of your brand. In this write-up, we’ll look at how experts in the B2B industry are designing digital catalogs to boost sales and reach—and how you can do the same for your business.
How Digital Catalogs Increase Your Sales
A well-designed digital catalog is convenient, accessible, and engaging and offers significant advantages over traditional print catalogs. Below, we’ll look at some of the main reasons you should consider investing in a digital catalog.
Streamlined Shopping
It might go without saying, but paper catalogs lack one of the greatest advantages of a digital catalog: built-in purchasing features. Digital catalogs remove this friction by letting users quickly research products, access customer support, and check out without ever leaving your site. This makes for a smoother customer experience and significantly reduces the amount you need to invest in processing orders.
Accessible Purchasing
According to Gartner, 77% of B2B buyers say their latest purchase was complex or difficult, demonstrating the necessity of a seamless and straightforward customer buying experience. Well-designed digital catalogs can ease many of the pain points experienced by B2B buyers, making it easier for them to say yes.
Engaging Content
Digital catalogs allow you to add robust, engaging features for your visitors like expanded product information, video content, zoom-in functionality and detailed product views, FAQs, and more. With a print catalog, space is at a premium—but with a digital catalog, you can give your buyers as much content as they need to feel confident in purchasing from you.
Why Are Digital Catalogs a Good Fit for B2B E-Commerce Sites?
There are several reasons why a digital catalog is essential to the modern B2B business and why it’s a natural fit for boosting your sales and visibility.
1. Multi-channel compatibility
You need to ensure your catalog is available and accessible wherever your customers are: on their smartphone, on a tablet, or on desktop. Digital catalogs are versatile and flexible, which makes them highly competitive in the B2B market, where customers expect to have their purchasing options only a click away.
2. Increase sales
With a digital catalog, you make the buyer journey easy and comfortable. A digital catalog allows for many different shopping experiences, from casual browsing to searching directly for the desired products, and it’s also discoverable via many channels, from social media to search engines. By simplifying the browsing and buying process for all your potential purchasers, you encourage visitors to turn into loyal customers.
3. Showcasing products at their best
Creating digital catalogs allows B2B companies to present their products in unprecedented detail. Captivating detailed product photos, engaging video content, and reviews from satisfied customers are all displayed with your product listings, making for a thoroughly enticing shopping experience.
How to Design a Compelling Digital Catalog
Despite the many advantages of a digital catalog, designing a catalog that stands out from the pack still requires a deft touch. Below are some of the most important considerations for creating your catalog.
1. Analyze buying patterns
Before building a B2B catalog, you must understand your customers’ buying patterns. Leverage this data analysis to organize your catalog, prioritizing your customers’ time and presenting them with the most relevant products and information. What kinds of information do your customers seek out before they choose to buy? Ease their decision process by making that information highly accessible.
2. Categorize products
For this section, you’ll need to put yourself in your buyers’ shoes. How can you make it as easy as possible for them to find what they’re looking for? Take time to ensure that your navigation is logical, easy to understand, and geared toward your unique collection of products. Sub-categories should be related to your top-line categories so that users never question where to find what they’re looking for.
3. Arrange products by brand
Many buyers will have preferred brands. Make it easy for them to find products by the brand as well as by category. If you offer your own product line, this also allows you to highlight your products and distinguish them from other brands you might offer.
4. Sort products by season
Anticipate the needs of your customers and their buying patterns by offering up the most seasonally relevant products in their own categories and promoting them at the appropriate times of year. This is also a great way to promote sales for off-season products.
5. Include product images
As many as possible! You don’t need to cover every millimeter of your products in the photos, but having a variety of accurate, high-quality images gives your listings credibility and a professional shine. You can employ AI-powered editing tools for perfectly styled product images.
6. Use relevant headings
Build out the pages for each product category by including relevant headings and subheadings. This is a chance to show your knowledge of the products you offer and lets buyers know that they are purchasing from a business with a thoughtful, human touch.
7. Structure product descriptions
Structure your product descriptions consistently and logically, allowing buyers to find all the relevant information in one place. A thorough product description can also prevent accidental or unwanted purchases, reducing returns and frustrated buyers.
8. Invest in search functionality
Make sure it’s simple for customers who know what they want to find it right away, skipping straight from browsing to buying. Intelligent search algorithms, advanced and customized filtering options, and sort options will all help your buyers locate their preferred products easily. For example, if you operate an outdoor recreation supply business with a category for shoes, allowing customers to filter by shoe size and width will prevent them from needing to click into product listings, only to discover that the sizes they need are not offered.
9. Use e-commerce integrations
Use integrations to make implementing your catalog easier while increasing convenience for your customers. Consider integrations for necessities like payment handling, inventory management, customer relationship management, and accounting.
Bottom Line
Digital catalogs are an all-in-one solution where customers can
- Find all the information they need to make their purchases
- Place orders
- Access customer support
- Check out directly from the catalog
These catalogs hold all the information you’d find in a print catalog, plus much more. They provide buyers with an easy, convenient shopping experience and give B2B retailers a chance to promote their products far and wide. As a B2B business owner, a well-rounded and customer-oriented digital catalog is a tool you can’t afford not to have in your kit.