Industrial Insights Newsletter: Industrial Manufacturers Optimistic About Economy, Poor Website Navigation Costing You, More!

What a visionary that Kermit¹ was way back in 1970. Here we are forty years later in 2010, gushing with 'green enthusiasm'. Little did good old Kermit know back then just how prophetic those words were. Today, green talk is cheap but green action requires sophisticated and expensive solutions. Back in 1998, when we came on to the Internet eCatalog provider scene, we made the big fat claim that 'someday b2b buyers and specifiers would no longer leaf through massive print catalogs'. Instead, they would just interactively search for needed products on manufacturer's websites, especially those with i-MARK eCatalogs. We weren't so much for saving trees those days. We just thought it would be a lot more practical for users to come to a web site 24/7 from anywhere around the globe and serve themselves to product selection, support information, CAD files and, yes - even place orders online, using credit cards, no less.

But now, the greening of our planet is serious business with incredible momentum driving business to take 'greening' very seriously. Our customers tell us they have dramatically reduced the use of print catalogs. Interactive product selection software, cheaper storage costs and fast Adobe PDF downloading makes it so much easier for visitors to 'pick-and-choose' what they want to see in print form. For some, just viewing the PDF document is enough. Others will only download and print a few PDF pages that are pertinent, while others save and share all the information they extract from a provider's eCatalog electronically - in project folders and send to others as e-mail attachments. What's remarkable and probably unthinkable five years ago, is that website visitors are much happier with this approach. Their information is much better organized and they bookmark popular vendor eCatalogs for anytime, instant access for the information they need on the spot. Not your business hours? No problem. You are always open and serving your markets online.

It is not just the cost savings for our customers (though substantial). It also relieves them of the troubling notion that by sending out hundreds or thousands of huge paper catalogs every year, they are doing more harm than good. How many of these catalogs actually get used, they wondered? Yes, some for sure. But anyone still thinking that the paper catalog is still the primary source of product information for the b2b market is simply out of touch. The interactive electronic media has the print alternative beat hands down. The shift is upon us. Save a lot of paper (and trees). Give your website visitors great service and always up to date information. Feel good about the three-way win - delighting your customers, greening the environment and doing the right thing while saving time and money.

¹Joe Raposo, songwriter - Jim Henson, voice