A4CS Ltd
Freelance catalogue designer
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FLIPPING CATALOGUES - Could they help your business?
One often-overlooked development in our industry in the past few years is the online
digital page flipping format. It all began in 2002 with 'page curl and flip' Flash
conversion from a pdf, an array of companies now provide these online services, some
using freeware as the basic background architecture. Tempted to dismiss it all as
a gimmick? Take a closer look first and you might be surprised to find that it could
offer you an additional way to interact with your customers and a valuable additional
route to market.
As print and distribution costs increase, the digital page flip catalogue is particularly
relevant to 'marginal' prospects: it could be the ideal way of presenting your product
range via enewsletter links to those who might not normally visit your site. It's
worth bearing in mind research that suggests prospective customers spend almost twice
as long viewing an online page-flipping catalogue as a corresponding website.
The traditional page format still offers the ideal way to showcase content - even
online - as 'turning the page' is a familiar, engaging and a satisfying action: something
many websites find hard to emulate and which many potential customers, particularly
older ones, prefer. It also enables you to showcase your products very efficiently
in a structured way: using all the tried and tested offline sales techniques (such
as pagination, hotspots and calls to action) as well as online devices (such as adding
video content to enrich the format and incorporating affiliate links from adverts
to gain additional revenue).
12 Questions you need to ask yourself:
- How many publications will I host per year?
- Will I need to add content (video, social network links, RSS feeds etc)?
- Do I need to link the products to my existing ecommerce solution?
- Do I need analysis (who visits what page, when and what they enlarge)?
- Can I customise the pasteboard with my own branding?
- What customer support is offered and is this UK phone based?
- Does the provider offer ongoing solutions?
- Who do my competitors use?
- Does the provider support smartphone/pad development?
- Which functions are offered as standard and which are charged
as 'add-ons'? - Can they provide A/B testing?
- Does it easily incorporate Google analytics?
How to start
The raw material is readily available: your studio can provide the standard pdf documents
which can be quickly linked and converted to an SWF (Shockwave flash) flipping page
format. Extra link functions can either be added within the professional version
of Adobe Acrobat prior to Flash conversion or post production links added. Here your
choice of supplier is critical as some software/service providers include some sophisticated
functions whilst others provide them as 'add-ons' for which they charge extra. Many
include hosting on their own super fast servers as part of the service; this ensures
reliable hosting and quick page rendering along with reporting structures which can
provide you with page view statistics, hotspot feedback, visitor numbers and duration
along with reader behaviour and much more. Auto reporting of analysis can even have
built-in email and text functions, and many provide easy imports to Microsoft Excel
for your inhouse use.
You can further enrich your customers' online experience by embedding sound and videos
into pages via FLV (Flash video) SWF (Shockwave Flash) and also include interactive
questionnaires to enable customer feedback. The process of adding direct links to
your shopping cart will enable customers to place orders off the page. RSS feeds
and social media links are also easily added - to encourage readers to share their
experiences with others.
Ensure you're 'future proof'
With the recent introduction of HTML5, many of these flip page providers offer an
upgrade to mobile devices and work seamlessly on smartphones, iPhones, iPads, Google
Android and other mobile devices. This is a massive developing market that won't
require the download of an 'app' to use. It also enables your catalogue content to
be viewed when and where the potential customer chooses - so you really are getting
the best of all worlds.
How to get things moving
Many inhouse webmasters might question why they should even consider an online catalogue
when all the information is already on their website. This is where you need to think
about the additional 'route to market', whether an online catalogue could drive additional
traffic to your site, and how useful it could be to add catalogue flipping files
and links to emails and enewsletters.
Recent John Lewis catalogue with embedded video from Ceros
Which supplier to choose?
The question of which provider to choose can be mind boggling - an initial Google
search for page flip software comes up with well over 30 companies - all offering
what appears at first glance to be a similar service. I personally would question
whether they'll all be around in three years' time, so my preference would be to
go for an established outfit. Be aware that functionality on 'free' pdf-to-flash
conversions can be limited and the provider's aim is to upgrade you to a paid subscription.
Some companies sell software; others provide sophisticated content management solutions
that are exclusively online; some do not charge to convert your pdf but do charge
per hosted publication. More typically providers charge a monthly or annual licence
fee. Which solution is right for you all depends on how many publications you'll
need to host and what additional services you might like to include..
Article as featured in Catalogue & ebusiness Spring 2011
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