Creating a Retail Catalog? Utter Chaos!
Retail can be an immensly complex and competitive industry. Big brands such as Amazon and Alibaba are constantly mentioning new innovations they are planning on rolling out. Tough competition, however, is not the only thing plaguing the retail industry. Let’s take the production of a retail catalog. A few times a year, you’re planning several months ahead to promote seasonal products. But creating a catalog is far more intricate than repeating that process over and over again.
Stakeholder chaos
Producing a catalog involves many stakeholders. Think of marketeers, graphic designers, and buyers. That last group wants the best position for their product in the catalog. But that’s impossible: you can’t take everyone’s wishes into account. Buyers are also responsible for all the product data and thus play an important role in the production of a catalog.
As a retailer, you also work closely with the designer. They undertake a heavy task and are often held accountable for any mistakes. Firstly, they need to copy the information for the catalog from Excel and paste it in InDesign. Then, they create a first draft and send it to the marketeers and buyers.
Remarks are sent on pdf post-its, in emails or even on scribbled notes. The designer has to copy and paste – again – and incorporate these remarks into his design. An arduous task.
No clear overview
But that’s not all. When you’re designing your catalog, you never truly know what the finalized design will look like. Because everyone keeps on sending remarks to the designer, your catalog is constantly being updated, leaving you with no clear overview.
Besides, the information of the products appearing can also change. It’s also possible that there were certain issues delivering some products, leaving you with an empty spot in your retail catalog. These last-minute changes force you to change the layout in the last stages of catalog creation.
Creating a catalog equals inexpressible chaos. Things like product information, photos or layout change constantly. Moreover, feedback is not centralized in one place. All of these remarks are scattered in pdfs, emails or on post-its so it’s very possible the designer misses one of these remarks.
Scattered product information
There’s nothing worse than a catalog filled with outdated prices, incorrect dates or wrong pictures of products. But how does a correct catalog come to be when your product’s content is stored in different systems?
Most of the time, essential product information is stored in your business’ PIM system. All of this data is often pasted in Excel when it’s being handed to the designer. This can result in outdated information since the file is not kept up to date with the latest information. Moreover, pictures of all your products are not stored in the same place but are kept in another system such as DAM. This increases the chance that the wrong product will be linked to the wrong information.
Flexibility is what you need!
To solve all of these problems, many retailers are on the hunt for a solution that will help them move forward. To make the production of a catalog more efficient, the solution must be online-based. Working with an online editor allows your team to work wherever and whenever they want, with no special programs downloaded. And, an online editor also automatically synchronizes your designs so you’re always working on the latest version.
Moreover, that solution must include a fixed workflow, allowing your team to collaborate far more efficiently. Besides, this workflow streamlines everybody’s tasks which will make the creation of your catalog easier. Everybody has their tasks and has the responsibility of completing them on time.
To finish it off, the solution would need to incorporate all comments of other collaborators. So you have a central place for all comments to get a clear overview. Such an online editor would alleviate the problems of creating a retail catalog by its integration with PIM and DAM systems.
Hungry for more?
Curious to see how this retail solution can help your organization create catalogs? Visit 2imagine’s website and make an appointment with our experts!