The return of commerce catalogs: A new era of shopping

Highlights

You’ll learn about why you need commerce catalogs:

• Accurate product descriptions: Builds trust while reducing return
• Enhanced brand storytelling: Visually convey your brand's narrative
• Increased customer engagement: Builds deeper customer relationship
• Personalized experiences: Customizes content to individual preferences

Did you know more than half of customers return products because it doesn’t match the product description? Unlike offline stores, where a sales representative assists customers in purchasing, online shoppers have no such facility. That’s why customers depend on your e-commerce catalogs. These catalogs serve as the virtual storefront for your business. Your catalogs house the product descriptions and other details that help your customers make a purchase. 

Bad catalog data means you’re losing potential revenue opportunities. The more organized your catalog data and information are, the easier it becomes to market your products and expand product discovery. 

When your digital catalogs are spread across many platforms, your customers feel engaged with your products. But what are commerce catalogs, what does the return of commerce catalogs mean for your business, and how do content management platforms like Contentstack help you with catalogs?

What is a commerce catalog?

A commerce catalog is like a digital showcase of your product attributes, including descriptions, prices, promotions and stunning images to attract customers. These catalogs offer a tactile experience, encouraging customers to consider your offerings. Catalogs are more than product lists. They convey your brand stories, provide themed narratives and offer engaging content to capture your customer’s attention. As part of your marketing strategy, commerce catalogs connect the dots between online and offline experiences, creating a journey that can increase sales and build loyalty.

Before the digital era, printed catalogs were the only way to shop outside a shop, but digital penetration removed them completely. So, what led to their return?

Emotional and nostalgic value

Catalogs bring back memories of simpler times, creating a nostalgic connection that increases brand loyalty and keeps customers returning.

Tactile experience

Unlike digital ads, catalogs offer a physical engagement and touch, allowing customers to connect with the brand at a personal level.

Information overload

Catalogs offer a break, delivering curated content that makes an impression.

Benefits of using catalogs

Tangible customer connection

Catalogs offer a physical touchpoint where you interact with your brand. As a result, you create a more personal and memorable brand experience, which improves customer engagement and retention.

Enhances brand storytelling

Catalogs are a great way to tell a story. With a catalog, you can showcase your products in a beautiful, curated way that brings your story and values to life. Conveying your story captures your customer's interest and encourages them to explore what your brand offers.

Nostalgia appeal

With catalogs, you can rekindle your customer's emotional memories. This creates a deeper connection with your brand because you use nostalgia-driven marketing strategies.

Personalized experience

A catalog personalizes your product offerings to match individual customer requirements. Your customers receive personalized and relevant offers, providing an enjoyable experience.

Higher customer engagement

Catalogs encourage direct mail marketing, allowing customers to interact with your brands outside the digital channel. This enhances engagement and drives sales.

Best practices for commerce catalogs

Integration with digital platforms

Ensure your catalogs are part of your multichannel strategy. Use QR codes or links to connect catalog pages with online content, products or promotions, reducing the gap between print and digital.

Catalog personalization and targeting

Use customer data analytics to personalize your catalog content according to individual preferences and behaviors. Offering personalization increases your catalog’s relevance, creates higher engagement and addresses their specific needs and interests.

Suggest associated and alternative products

Offering product recommendations within your catalog can increase customer engagement. You can provide an alternative option to increase upsell and cross-sell opportunities. This improves sales and customer satisfaction.

Precision targeting

By adopting accurate targeting strategies, your catalogs reach those interested in them, ensuring a higher return on investment (ROI) and customer satisfaction. You can use demographic, geographic and psychographic information to personalize your content sharing and distribution. Such precision enhances your customer’s engagement, providing content to the right people at the right time.

Negative impact of poor digital catalog

Extra burden on customer service

If your customers have questions or issues finding their way around your catalogs, you will see increased traffic to your customer service call center, straining your resources and leading to longer periods on hold.

Higher cart abandonment rate

Customers who cannot locate the product they are looking for or compare the available products because of poor design and missing information on the catalog will leave your website. Confusing product catalogs result in customers abandoning the shopping cart, which lowers sales and conversion rates.

Loss of trust

Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. A poorly developed catalog can give customers the wrong impression about your brand, making them think it’s fake. Lack of information or technical difficulties in accessing information can cause customers to move to competitors. 

How do platforms like Contentstack help with commerce catalogs?

Contentstack offers a headless content management system (CMS) that greatly increases your ability to organize and update your product details at scale. The platform can connect to your favorite commerce tools and third-party software. What sets Contentstack apart from others is that it can scale with your business, helping you manage more products and traffic. Its intuitive interface makes it easy for your team to use, resulting in better operations. With Contentstack’s headless CMS, you can create personalized and dynamic catalog content that speaks to your customers.

Its API-driven approach, in-product automation and personalization solutions make personalization and content updates easy, keeping your catalogs fresh and relevant. Contentstack's analytics support is beneficial for delivering customers’ behavior data, which can increase conversion and engagement rates. 

Case study: How did Contentstack improve Cartier’s digital efficiency?

Cartier used Contentstack's headless content management strategy to enhance its digital experience and product catalogs across various platforms. After using Contentstack, Cartier ensured quick content updates, maintained brand consistency and simplified the management of digital catalogs and other properties. The implementation improved efficiency, enabling Cartier to develop new websites in days instead of weeks and ensure brand integrity across varied initiatives. With Contentstack, Cartier reduced reliance on external partners and optimized content delivery for different devices.

After using Contentstack, Anastasia Goglova, International Digital Lead, said:

“The websites that are such a critical part of our digital portfolio are now more aligned and more performant. As a result, the customer digital experience of Cartier improves, reflecting our commitment to becoming a reference for luxury in all aspects.”

Read the complete case study here. 

FAQs

What is a commerce catalog?

A commerce catalog is a printed or digital publication that showcases your brand's products or services to engage consumers and drive sales.

Do people still buy from catalogs?

Yes, many customers buy from catalogs when you offer personalized and engaging content.

What companies use catalogs?

From high-end fashion retail brands to home goods retailers, many companies use new catalog pages to reach and engage their customers.

Learn more

Selecting an e-commerce tool that offers commerce catalog management can be tricky. When you manage your catalog, you organize your product details while creating an exceptional customer experience.

That’s where Contentstack comes in. The platform can manage your commerce catalogs, track orders, update pricing when necessary, control inventory and track customer information. Apart from commerce catalog management, Contentstack offers various other tools for catalog management. To explore how we can help you manage your catalogs, talk to us.