We are living in a time where almost everything is done digitally from communicating with our family and friends through many applications to reading the news, listening to music, and shopping.
Since the world is in a more or less fragile state right now with everything that is happening, some businesses take this opportunity to expand in many ways, especially in eCommerce.
People are spending more time at home, so they spend their free time watching movies, engaging in home projects, and probably their favourite activity – shopping. This is where eCommerce businesses come in.
They come up with different ways to attract more customers, whether it is through many promotions and deals, online marketing, or, most importantly, through online shopping catalogues.
Online shopping catalogues include a massive variety of products and are designed in a way that people can go shopping online from the comfort of their homes. Not only that, they even provide their customers with more benefits.
Some of them offer their shoppers online catalogues with credit. This means that people who usually get carried away with overspending their shopping budget, can easily purchase whatever they want now and pay for it at a later time, often in weekly or monthly instalments.
This is very useful for those people who have bad credit ratings. Even if online shopping catalogues do a credit check of their customers, they may still approve of many visitors who have bad credit ratings, confirming their higher acceptance rate.
Now, how can these catalogues help your eCommerce business?
1. Relevancy of products
Whatever you are selling, it must be appealing to the customers. Since many businesses sell similar products and maybe for lower prices, there is something that you, as a business, must have to stand out.
For example, some customers aren’t sure what they want to buy, so browsing through the catalogue, they should find something that is going to be appealing to them. Whether it is how it was presented in the catalogue, how it was used, or the cost of it, the customers must discover it.
Discovering the products is the first phase through which shoppers go through when looking at an online shopping catalogue. During this phase, the eCommerce business and the shopper establish a relationship, meaning the shopper is interested.
2. High-quality content for customer engagement
When we shop in regular stores, the first thing we look at is the price. If we like the product and if we can afford it, we are more likely to purchase it. But before you purchase anything, you think about how you can use it at home.
Sometimes customers stop at this point and don’t buy anything. With online catalogues, we are usually attracted by the photos in which we see how the product is used.
Online shopping catalogues use marketing tricks like high-quality photos created with animation or videos, which increases the profit of the eCommerce business.
When shoppers have the opportunity to see the 3D version of the product’s use, then the probability of them purchasing that product is much higher than usual.
3. Reaching a wider audience through omnichanneling
How can these businesses reach a wider audience? They usually do this through emailing newsletters to new customers, posting some of their products on social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, or sending out printed catalogues in the mail.
However, many retail businesses have their own websites and applications through which customers browse through their online stores and purchase their products with their smartphones.
Therefore, through the business’s online shopping catalogues the customer has the opportunity to see the massive variety of products, how they are used, what their price is, and which stores they are available in.
According to statistics provided by Invespcro, eCommerce businesses retain around 89% of their customers if they have these omnichanneling features.
4. Optimizing your content
There are so many businesses that have online shopping catalogues, but it is up to you to stand out and attract as many customers as you can. One way to do this is through search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO.
Remember how we mentioned the relationship that you, as an eCommerce business, have to establish with your customer? Well, SEO helps us with that.
For example, if someone wants to buy a tent to go camping, they type the phrase “buy a tent” into the Google search box, and most likely, there will be a million websites where they can purchase tents.
But the key is for them to find you and buy from you. This is where SEO comes in. Your online shopping catalogue should have specific keywords that are less competitive compared to other online catalogues, like “buy a four-person tent.”
In this way, you are balancing between popularity and relevancy, and choosing smart keywords for your products can bring you more customers.
Final thoughts
To sum up, planning and designing your online shopping catalogue takes time, but it is worth it to go through all the trouble so that you can expand your eCommerce business.
Having engaging, high-quality content organized in creative ways and using specific keywords for your products can take your business to the next level.
We are living in a digital world, and by employing the best practices you can attract more customers, and as a result, the profits will increase too.