Product catalogs can help improve sales.
Designing a product catalog is a way to increase sales by making it easier for customers to purchase products. Invest effort and thought to design a catalog that highlights product features in a way that makes the customer likely to purchase items. A large business can hire a professional to design and create a product catalog for thousands of dollars. A small business may be unable to afford this, but its staffers can design a product catalog themselves.
Instructions
1. Gather all products to include in your product catalog. Choose items more likely to sell if you can't afford to include all products because of catalog production costs or space constraints. Organize products by categories such as model and type.
2. Write descriptions that will inform customers about product features while persuading them to buy the items. Take detailed, clear photographs of each product in several angles with a quality digital camera. Use high-end photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop or freeware like Google's Picasa to make necessary changes.
3. Find a printer to produce the catalogs at a fair price. Try negotiating the price if you're buying catalogs in bulk. Ask the printing service about what dimensions it can print and for details like the type of stock paper used. Learn the guidelines on how you should format your product catalog. You can create a product catalog in-house cheaply, but you must know the printer's margin and color requirements, for example, to ensure the product can be printed.
4. Buy and use software -- like Apsiva PRINTSource -- designed to create product catalogs. Learn the software's basics and create your catalog. Follow the printer's guidelines to format your catalog correctly. Add contact information, pictures, prices, descriptions, an order form and anything else that might be necessary. Create a cover that shows the company's newest or best product and has a bold headline that ties the products together with a theme -- and draws the reader to turn the page. Check your product catalog for initial mistakes made in pricing, descriptions and pictures.
5. Double-check to ensure the product meets the printer's formatting requirements. Deliver the finished product catalog to your printer.
