Month: January 2021

How to create a beautiful template to present your products?

A template is a design tool used to present text, symbols, and images. Templates are widely used in social media and for advertising and marketing.

Why are they so popular?
  • Time efficiency. It only takes seconds to present your product or information using a template.
  • Cost efficiency. Hiring a designer is way more expensive than using templates. Moreover, you can easily find free templates or create some yourself.
  • Guaranteed results. We will talk about catalog templates. Here, the term “catalog” includes line sheets, look books, data sheets, brochures, and sales sheets. If you want to create these, keep reading to learn some tricks that will make your life easier.

What to consider before creating a template

While you can create a template for the whole catalog, it’s hard to predict how it will look once you fill in the actual product information. Therefore, we recommend generating a template for each product individually. In this way, you can easily add or delete products without affecting the overall document. However, you should keep three things in mind.

  1. What is the purpose of your catalog?

A line sheet and a look book have different purposes. A line sheet targets retailers who will make a rational decision about further collaboration with you. So, you want to include all the data about the product. Conversely, a look book aims to target consumers and appeals to their emotions. A good look book has a large image of the product and minimum information, usually, the price and some product variants such as size and color.

As you can see, based on the type and purpose of the catalog, your template will look different. Always check twice to confirm whether the catalog you are using or generating serves your initial goal.

  1. What are your customers’ expectations?

Your target audience expects a certain type of behavior from you which is based on industry standards and brand identity. For instance, companies in the toy industry should always convey positivity and use bright colors and optimistic language. At the same time, businesses in the same industry could have different images. Let’s look at the automobile industry. Toyota aims to produce the best family car, Tesla the most environmentally friendly car, and BMW the most luxurious car. So, define who you are in your industry and try to maintain this image in the product template.

  1. How many products per page are you presenting?

The more products you have, the less information about one product you can fit on the page. Remember, leaving some space between images and the text is the golden rule of today’s design. Based on our experience, the ideal maximum number of products per page is 6. However, if you have 10000 products in one catalog, you would want to fit in as many products per page as you can. In this case, you should think carefully about the information you include.

How to create a template for your catalog? 

Catalog Machine is an online platform that allows you to generate templates from scratch. Let’s use it as an example of template creation.

After you create an account and upload your products, select Catalogs and click on New Catalog in the top right corner. From the options that appear, select Grid. 

You can also find existing templates based on the industry and catalog types.

Click on Select Catalog Products and move products you want to include in the catalog from the right-side column to the left.

The next step is the most interesting for us because it’s time to create the template. But first, let’s select how many products per page you want to present. Then click on +New Template to design one from scratch.

Here, all you need to do is allocate the desired elements on the canvas. An image, product name, price, and description are the most common, so, we will continue working with them.

Make sure the image file is big enough, and that the client can easily see the details.

The text also should be easy to read. However, the font may be even more important than the size. This template has a Monserrat font, which is straight and clear. Do some font research on the platform and select the one you like the most.

Make essential parts of the text bold to attract customers’ attention.

Don’t forget to align the text as it generates a neat presentation.

On the left side of the screen, you can see your products. Click on any one of them to see how the template will look with actual product information. Make changes if the text or image doesn’t fit.

Once you are happy with the template, click Save.

Now it’s time to see how the products look arranged together on one page. You can always go back to the template and change it if it does not meet your expectations.

If you are satisfied with it, click on Create a Catalog.

Template creation can be challenging if you don’t know your goal, your customers’ expectations, and how to structure the page. Once you answer these questions, sign up on https://www.catalogmachine.com/ and create your template quickly and easily!

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to create a Price List: All you need to know

A good price list will benefit your business in the following ways:

  1. Standardized prices enhance your trustworthiness as a brand and help avoid miscommunication with clients and retailers.
  2. A defined price list makes discounts seem more significant.
  3. It simplifies price management for business owners.

However, you can only achieve all this by creating a professionally structured price list. Here, we offer you some design and structure tips to craft a price list, accompanied by step-by-step instructions.

What makes a good Price List?

Structure everything

Most price lists have a tabular format. Clients are already used to it, so they know where to find the requisite information. For example, a common listing practice puts the product name and code on the extreme left with the prices on the extreme right. Implementing a table structure allows you to arrange numerous products simultaneously, which helps keep the document short. This brings us to the next point.

Beauty Price List

Keep it short and clear 

A professional price list is merely a few pages in length; there is no need to include all the product information in it. Usually, the list contains everything a client needs to pick a product and confirm an order. We recommend you include the following items:

  • Product name
  • Short description
  • Price (Retail and wholesale, if necessary)

Some industries may also require a product code (e.g. supply industry) or a small image (e.g. fashion industry).

Include contact information

Make sure the client can find contact information at first glance. For instance, if you have a multiple-page price list, put the information at the top-right corner of every page. Apart from this, also include it on the front page and the bottom of the cover page, if you have one. Remember, a purchase decision is usually a matter of seconds. So, a person who can’t reach out to you quickly is a lost client. Let us also clarify that we are not including houses, cars, etc. in this point.

Clothing Price List

Use a simple design 

Use two or three brand colors that look good together. If you are still not sure, you can find some eye-catching color combinations here. With the font, the safest option is to go with one type. You can play around with thickness or size to attract attention to specific points. Having a background full of colors can be irritating and distract from the primary purpose, so keep it simple.

Now you know the basic design rules to build a professional-looking price list. Let’s see how you can implement them in practice.

How to build a Price List?

Catalog Machine is an online platform that you can use to create a gorgeous price list. I will use it to illustrate the above theory in practice.

Once you log in and upload your product database, go to Catalogs and click on Create New Catalog. From the presented options, select Price List.

Price List as a type of a catalog

Now, add products from the database to the price list and click on Set Up a Price List in the top right corner.

Add products to the Price LIst

Now it’s time to select a structure for your price list. All the templates have a table layout that agrees with the first point made above, so, you can choose any of them and be sure of the result. Here, I select the first one as it has a predefined place for contact information.

I have already received a unified table, as you can see from the picture below. However, I am not satisfied with the design and still need to insert information such as company name, contact information, and logo in the predefined fields. For the company name and phone/address, you can directly type it in. To add a Logo, click on the sign. On the right-hand side of the screen, select Change Image, and upload an image from your computer.

To fix the table design, click on the Edit Product List button.

Price List Layout

Let’s start with the information that I want to include. To keep it clear and simple, I will remove the filled-in product description and add the image file to make my price list more appealing.

I then click on the Field button on top of the screen and use the Remove and Add options to manipulate the fields.

Now it’s time to change colors and fonts. I like the combination of Light Blue (#89ABE3FF) and White (#FCF6F5FF) with Josefin Sans font. With this choice, I achieve a light and stunning design.

To do this, I click on Design and Structure and select the needed font from the list. I then type in the color HEX number in the header. The header and borders should have matching colors. So, the table seems consistent and does not distract a reader from the text. Since I am going with white and blue, I will make the borders blue as well.

We have covered almost everything, except for a few details. Ensure that the font inside the table and the font you use for the other fields match. I will use a Josefin Sans for all the text in my price list. You can also center text inside the table.

To see the result of your work, click on Preview and select a format. The beauty here is that you can get your price list in both digital and PDF formats simultaneously. Here is the result of our work.

Click on https://www.catalogmachine.com/templates/price-list to create your professional price list!