Digital B2B catalogues – The future of buying.

Are print catalogues becoming a wasteful solution? Yes and no.

Often seen with bent or torn pages, sticky notes and circled products, print catalogs provide a thorough overview of products. There’s no argument there. A paper catalogue was the internet – before the internet. However, with the majority of consumers moving to shopping online, wholesalers that resist digitization may find themselves crowded out of their market by competitors who have come to embrace B2B ecommerce much sooner.

Frost & Sullivan say that 70% of businesses will have turned to digital catalogues in the next 5 years, just because of convenience and post-covid sense of urgency. Here’s how a digital catalogue can benefit your brand. 

Forget about those time-consuming, long hours of dealing with paper-work and excel line-sheets across accounts. Digital catalogues allow you to showcase your products and make everything accessible with integrated technology such as available stock, order status, shopping features, and online content. With Kingpin for example, the user has access to dedicated dashboards, tracked payments and live notifications, streamlining the whole order process and simply making life easier. You could now be spending less time keying in orders manually and more time on actually envisioning the future of your brand and building a stronger relationship with customers.

A B2B marketplace like Kingpin or an integrated ERP software can host a digital catalogue, allowing real-time inventory counts, multi-channel consistency and product information. Having such accurate product information and high-quality, full-colour product images is crucial as wholesalers would have a smooth, user-friendly buying experience. By having effective catalog management, you reduce the time it takes for a buyer to navigate and narrow down the products. Digital catalogues therefore drive sales simply because they are accessible, convenient, and engaging, reflecting back to Sullivan & Frost’s statements. While elegant to look at, print catalogs don’t have built-in buying features. Online catalogs remove friction by allowing users to research products and add any items to the cart with ease, having a one-click access across any device. There is no wait for assistance, nor any complex communication.

Moreover, a digital catalogue is cost efficient as you can save the money needed for printing and distributing the catalogue. A digital catalogue has integrated functionalities as mentioned above allowing users to find products easily, maximising the likelihood of them making a purchase.

A digital B2B ecommerce catalog is a huge asset for wholesalers and distributors alike as it delivers a full spectrum experience, providing the ability to order and re order hassle-free. Invest in a seamless, B2B storefront that removes all pain points and says “We provide everything you need online, all in one place. Just see for yourself.”