Product catalogs are a great resource for sharing comprehensive product information with your audience. When a customer is looking to make a purchase a product catalog will serve as a single source of truth, providing them everything they need to make an informed purchase. Building a catalog can feel like a big process that often leaves your team in the weeds of messy product data. Luckily there are tools to manage your data and quickly build interactive digital product catalogs.
What Is a Digital Product Catalog?
A product catalog is a complete listing of all of a company’s products. These documents are often referred to as a product catalog, product guide, product catalogue or a product list. This resource shares important product information like sizing, horsepower, related products, and specs to help your customers make informed purchases.This resource can be presented in either a printed or digital product catalog. Printed catalogs are often stored at a third party vendor or mailed to a consumer's home. Digital product catalog examples include a product catalog PDF hosted on the company’s website, or digital experiences. Using a digital experience is a great way to build an interactive digital catalog.
What Are Examples of a Catalog?
Many different types of companies can take advantage of a product catalog. The only requirement is having products!Manufacturers who produce items from light bulbs to ceiling fans will find a product catalog useful. Larger items like engines or large pieces of machinery can be listed in a product catalog. Even smaller items such as skincare products. Product catalogs are meant to share the details of products so consumers can make informed purchases. Some companies choose to go the printed catalog route. They spend time designing and updating a printed catalog that is shared with customers in store or possibly mailed to their home. These catalogs typically have a strict release schedule, because of the cost associated with producing it. Catalogs might only be released a few times a year. Other companies take advantage of a digital product guide. These product guides are updated easily and create an interactive experience for the customer. Because it is a digital experience there is very little cost associated with distribution. Possibly just printing materials once with a QR code.
How Do I Create a Digital Catalog for Free?
Like most things in life, sadly nothing is free. Some options may appear to be free boasting they are the best free online catalog maker but make sure to dive into the details before you sign up for a free option. Even if the programs you use to create a catalog are free, think about the time and resources building a catalog might take up. If your team is tracking product updates in Excel sheets, manually typing in product details, designing a catalog and reviewing it, you’re spending a lot of money by using their time in an inefficient way. Solutions like Lumavate offer functionality like a Product Information Management (PIM) solution to manage your data efficiently. Your team no longer needs to remember which version of the Excel sheet has the most up to date product information. The data in the PIM will always be the most recent. Your team no longer needs to manually type every product detail into the product catalog. By connecting the PIM to digital experiences built in Lumavate, this information will flow in with just a few clicks. Make building branded product catalogs even easier by creating an online catalog template. Do all of the designing once and then your team can copy the template and make the edits needed. This cuts your team’s to-do list in half at least.
What App Can I Use to Create a Catalog?
There are many catalog maker software options. It is important to review all of the features of every software to determine which is the best catalog design software for your team. One to consider is Lumavate. Lumavate is not exclusively a digital catalog maker but their functionality lends itself well to building interactive digital product catalogs. Lumavate offers a PIM for easy data management. This PIM can be connected to digital experiences cutting down your product catalog creation time to about 30 minutes. After loading all of your product information into the PIM digital experiences can call this data to be displayed in a product catalog. Your team no longer needs to manually type every product detail on every page. Manage your data in the PIM and build up to date product catalogs every time. You don’t need to worry about updates slipping through the cracks because when information is updated in the PIM the change is seen in every digital experience. Gone are the days of outdated product catalogs and human error sneaking into your resources. Use your team’s time wisely and reap the benefits.Learn how to make better digital product guides today. Book a demo!
Meet with one of our experts to see how easy it is to centralize your product data, manage digital assets, and create digital product experiences. Trust us…you’re going to be wowed.
