Month: March 2021

Top 4 reasons why do you need a catalog designer

Product catalog showcases your products to your customers and so connects you with your target audience. A catalog could become a new breath of fresh air to your business in increased sales, advanced branding, and better customer relations. So, all you want to achieve with the marketing efforts. However, not every catalog could bring the expected result. This is why we are offering you to rely on the professionals and let us create a catalog for you. 

Catalog to boost your business

In this article, you will find more information on how the catalog designer could make a difference for you and some tips you want to keep in mind if you’re going to build a catalog by yourself.

Why do you need a catalog designer?

1. To make your catalog look attractive 

There are thousands of catalogs out there, and one of your main goals is to stand out. An excellent and professional-looking design is one of the first steps on your way towards the selling catalog. 

This point is tightly connected to the idea of branding. Using simple words, your brand is the emotion that would associate with your products among the customers. An experienced designer knows how color and font could provoke the ‘right’ feeling. If you still have not decided on the main branding components – logo, color scheme, font, design of icons, the Catalog Machine team could help you do it. Vice versa, if you already have established branding attributes, we will make sure that they are used in your online or PDF catalog. 

Crate your brand

Tip: Use similar branding attributes among all your marketing materials and your landing pages. By doing this you are creating brand recognition among your target audience.   

2. To decide on the most relevant content 

The main difference between the general designer and the one specializing in the catalogs, line sheets, lookbooks, and price lists is understanding the most relevant content for your clients. Of course, you know your business from the bottom, so before designing marketing material, an experienced catalog designer will discuss the most crucial information with you. For example, the target audience’s understanding and the action that should be taken after reviewing a catalog will affect the result. 

The main reason for that is the limited amount of space for the information. A designer presents it on the page the way, so the most important pieces will be evident from the first glance. For example, if your goal is sales, the information on how the client should do it must be formulated as a call-to-action sentence and include supportive materials – ‘Call us to make an order, +1XXXXXXXXX’

Tip: You may want to include the call-to-action sentence and supportive materials on each page of your catalog, footer, or header, especially if your catalog is a 100-page-long. 

3. To stay unique 

The is always an option to use a pre-designed template for your catalog. On the one hand, all the templates are general, and they won’t consider your specific business needs. It means that you will need to update product fields and/or branding colors manually. 

On the other hand, you want to avoid the situation when you and your competitor are using the same template. As we have already discussed, the design of your line sheet, lookbook, etc., is strongly associated with your brand. You don’t want to confuse the client to confuse you with the other brand just because you are using the same template. 

Catalog layout

What we are doing to avoid this situation is the competitor analysis. Firstly, you can tell us what part of the design you like. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of the publicly available materials. Secondly, we will make sure that there is no one like you out there. 

4. A catalog designer will save your time and money 

A time part is pretty obvious. Transferring the responsibilities to the professionals makes you available for other urgent business needs. Creating a professional-looking design requires specific skills, which is another time-consuming action you will need to take if you want to create a good-looking catalog by yourself. 

The distinctive characteristic of the Catalog Machine platform is automation. What does it mean in practice? Once our designer has a ready catalog for you, you don’t need to order another one next season or once you update your product database. You can connect the catalog to your website or Shopify page with the help of Zapier. So, it will include only up-to-date products. No need to pay the designer twice!  

Design on several devices

Now you know why you would ever hire a catalog designer and why Catalog Machine is the right choice. To order your catalog, log in to catalogmachine.com, upload your products to the system, and message us about the type of your catalog (line sheet, datasheet, lookbook, price list, etc.) and share your design ideas. It usually takes us 3 to 7 days to finish your order.  

You have full flexibility to decide with Catalog Machine – when you need our professional help with creating a catalog or when you are ready to do everything yourself. Both options are open!

 

Order form: All you need to know

A purchase order form is a necessary tool for every business. It helps to improve financial and inventory control, manage incoming orders, and streamline the procurement processes. In this article, we will see in detail what is a purchase order form, what is necessary to include there, and how to create one for your business in a couple of minutes.

What is a purchase order form? 

A purchase order form is a template that is used for a purchase order. Generally speaking, it is a written agreement between the buyer and the seller about quantity, quality, time of delivery in the form of a document. It is mostly used at the B2B market when wholesaler, manufacturer, or retailer sells a high number of products at once.  

Digital order form template

Products & Services

An order form is used when businesses purchase both products and services. For example, you need to print out a brochure as a part of your marketing campaign. A printing agency will ask you to fill out a document where you will tell how many brochures do you need, what type of paper the agency should use, etc. 

Online & offline 

We have defined a purchase order as a document. However, it does not mean that it should be printed out. Lots of businesses that are operating online use a digital purchase order form. The difference is that in the online world it can be used for people, not just companies. Imagine the last time you bought cloth online? You need to select a size, color, and quantity before submitting. In other words, you are filling up an order form. 

What to include in your order form?

Based on the Purchase Control article, a general order form should contain the following fields. 

  • Information about the seller – the name of the company, address, contact info.
  • Information about the buyer – the name of the company/person, address, contact info. 
  • Purchase order number – a unique numerical identifier of the order. 
  • Information about the products – quantity, characteristics, etc.
  • Pricing – total and for each particular product.
  • Shipping details – when a product will be shipped, approximate date of arrival, address for delivery. 

After filling up a form, the customer usually received a confirmation via email, message, or even a phone call, if a seller needs to confirm any details.

How to create an order form? 

Catalog Machine is online software that allows you to create an order request form ready for printing or design a catalog with an embedded order form. Let’s see how you can create a PDF purchase order form in 3 Steps.

Step 1. 

After logging in to the system, go to Catalog and click Crete New on the top right corner. 

create new catalog

Select the Blank option on the very left. Click Create your catalog. 

catalog type

Step 2. 

Now you need to select a proper layout. 

Click More types on the right part of your screen. 

Working area for creating catalogs

Select Order form from the appeared page layout options. 

Order form layout

Now you need to select a template that suits your business needs: with product images, wholesale or static order forms. All of them are fully customizable, so no worries if you need to add extra information or change the design. 

Step 3. 

Customizing order form. 

Add products you would like to include. 

You can add products one by one, all products at once, or a group (collection or category). 

After adding, you can click Update Products to finish creating. The other option is to select Fields and Design to add more or delete some product fields and change the design. 

Play around with the available options to find the one that you like the most.

Adding products to order form

To preview how it will look like a PDF document or download it to your device, go to View/Download, PDF section, and select the option you need.

Adding an order form to an existing catalog

… is even more comfortable. 

Go to the catalog, click on the Orders on the left sidebar.  

Creating catalog

Here you can enable orders right from the catalog. 

As you can see from the image below, it will appear here once someone makes an order. 

List of orders

Advanced Settings 

Configure order request settings from the Order Requests page.

Configure order request settings from Order Requests page.

  • Custom caption for the button and order form
  • Enable product prices and totals for order requests
  • Enable product variants (displayed for products that have variants) with fields
  • Fill in the order form header and footer.
  • Add custom fields
  • · Select product fields that will be added to a notification email, presented at the order request form for your client and order request details page for you.
  • Configure a notification email sent to your customer

Order Request Settings

Order Request List, Details, and Management

Go to the Order Requests page from the right sidebar to access the list and details pages. 

the list and details pages. 

On the list page:

  • Manage simple order request life-cycle: Accept, Reject or Close order requests or delete them. These actions are available from list and details pages.
  • Filter orders by text, status, products, and dates
  • Export orders in CSV format

Order Details

Click on Order ID to access the Order Request Details.

You can add your notes on the Order Request Details page.

Manage order numbers

Change order request number by clicking on it and entering the number that will be synchronized with your system. After that, all new orders will be automatically enumerated using your system (ex. Renamed last order is 1234, the next one will be 1235). The system recognizes only the numerical part of the order name. So, if you name the order ABC1234, the next one will still be 1235. 

Manage list of orders

Back to Order Request

Now you know what a purchase order form is, why you need it, and how you can easily create one with Catalog Machine.