Problem: Bringing catalogs into the 21st century

El Corte Inglés was founded all the way back in 1940 and are now one of the biggest department store groups in Europe.

David Gurita, the E-commerce Digital & UX Lead, says that throughout El Corte Inglés history, the printed catalog always been a key driver for all marketing campaigns.

But today, David believes that tradition should be complemented by digital:

“El Corte Inglés are based on the values of quality and tradition, and catalogs can bring that kind of experience. But there was a need to put catalogs online. To bring tradition into the future,” says David.

To El Corte Inglés, bringing catalogs into the future meant finding a digital catalog solution that could…

• Be integrated in key channels
• Show interactive elements to create inspiration
• Be promotable across channels

Solution: iPaper

With more than 19 years of experience and reference points from large retailers, El Corte Inglés Portugal chose iPaper’s solution.

Mobile app integration

The El Corte Inglés mobile app was developed with the goal of being a central digital hub to provide services to shoppers. Obviously, then their catalogs should also be there.

After working with iPaper’s support and doing some development in the app, El Corte Inglés has fully integrated shoppable iPaper digital catalogs in their mobile app:

And the success shows in the numbers: 78% of the views on their digital catalogs are on mobile and tablet.

How iPaper can also help you:

• Your own Implementation specialist available
• Self-service help center with several articles on integrations
• Customer support in several languages and different time zones

Interactivity and inspiration

But when you place the digital catalog in a mobile app, the digital catalog should also be worth reading through:

“You can’t just upload a plain PDF, that would not work. But with iPaper, it’s not just a catalog. You can enrich the catalog with everything you want.” David Gurita, E-commerce Digital & UX Design Lead, El Corte Inglés Portugal

The key is to use videos, animations and links to create a page-turning effect:

If this page is interesting, then I’ll see the next and the next and the next. The shopper should be curious and think, ’what will I see next?’”

- David Gurita, the E-commerce Digital & UX Lead

And it shows in the results: El Corte Inglés’ digital catalogs have 31 average pages seen per session, which is 300% more than some of largest ecommerce sites have.

How iPaper can also help you?

• Videos, animations, icons and links are all available.
• Interactive elements can be created automatically
• Your own customer success manager

Promoting to increase reach and create traffic

But when you have an integrated, interactive digital catalog, you need to make sure the target audience are exposed to it.

Therefore, El Corte Inglés promote their digital catalogs on social media, radio, Google Ads and with QR codes on TV ads to drive as much traffic as possible.

For El Corte Inglés Portugal, it’s a matter of promoting it to as many shoppers as possible – even those that can’t go to the store:

Digital catalogs enrich the relationship with shoppers outside the big cities in Portugal, who can’t go to a store. With digital catalogs, shoppers can browse the catalog anywhere, anytime.”

- David Gurita, E-commerce Digital & UX Design Lead

Their digital catalogs then serve as a central point for the traffic of their campaigns and specific marketing tactics.  

How iPaper can also help you:

• Shareable links and embeddable catalogs
• Success Framework to get best-practices
• You can get your own branded domain (www.catalog.yourbrand.com)

Conclusion

El Corte Inglés Portugal have now brought tradition into the future.

Their printed catalogs are now complemented by a familiar, intuitive and wellknown digital alternative.

El Corte Inglés Portugal’s digital catalogs are now integrated in their mobile app, interactive and inspiring shoppers and promoted across channels and driving traffic

And that allows El Corte Inglés to reach shoppers anywhere, any time and on any device.

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Want more from El Corte Inglés? 

Read the interview with Marysol, General Director of Production at El Corte Inglés, here.

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