Case Study: Digital Catalog Boosts Engagement, Sales for Brahmin

PROBLEM: Brahmin, a cross-channel retailer of luxury leather handbags and accessories, wanted to enhance its digital marketing efforts.
SOLUTION: Launched a digital catalog.
RESULTS: Since going live with its first digital catalog in October 2009, Brahmin has seen the average time spent on its website double. The digital catalog sees the most traffic of any section on Brahmin's website, and it also produces the highest conversion rate. In addition, Brahmin's digital catalog is responsible for nearly 10 percent of the brand's referral traffic.

In its search for another customer engagement vehicle, Brahmin realized that one of its existing assets, its print catalog, could be reinvented to better serve today's digitally connected shoppers. It only made sense to put some of the beautiful product photography taken during Brahmin's catalog shoots to work online as well rather than just using it in the pages of its print book.

Helping Brahmin create its digital catalog is Zmags, a rich media platform provider. The retailer chose Zmags for a couple of reasons: one, its page-flip technology made the digital catalog look and feel like an online magazine, which was particularly important to the fashion brand; and two, the digital catalog could tie into Brahmin's web analytics, enabling it to get a better understanding of how consumers were shopping and using the catalog, something it couldn't get from the print version.

Having a digital version of its catalog has allowed Brahmin to test different elements within it — e.g., whether to include a table of contents, putting products on different pages — track the results and then make changes on the fly. The ultimate goal is an optimized catalog that increases conversions.

"With print, once it's out the door, it's out the door," says Amy Sullivan, director of e-commerce at Brahmin. "With our online version of the catalog, we're able to push certain sections, pull out areas of the catalog and create mini versions of it, load areas and leave other areas out for a while, showcase certain products at different times. We can take that core version of the print catalog and differentiate it a number of different ways at different times. We're always refreshing the content."

Brand Consistency Across All Channels
Much like many other retailers, Brahmin is increasingly seeing its audience engage and transact with it online, via mobile device and on social networks. The brand's digital catalog is available to consumers in all of these channels, as is the ability to make a purchase from it with new add-to-cart functionality.

Brahmin promotes its digital catalog through email blasts as well as its social channels. The retailer has just launched a new Facebook version of the catalog, enables users to pin products directly from the catalog to Pinterest and will integrate product videos into its digital catalog that will be played on the brand's YouTube channel.

"Our platform allows Brahmin to sell 24/7, 365 days a year," says Scott Bleczinski, president of Zmags. "We're really proud that our product provides brand consistency across mobile, social and web, and allows Brahmin's customers to transact across all those channels."

This isn't to say that Brahmin is abandoning its print catalog. The retailer still has a significant segment of its customer base that enjoys receiving it in the mail and being able to reference it before making a purchase, which most frequently happens online. Being a high-end luxury brand, Brahmin views its print catalog as a branding tool, Sullivan says, not necessarily a sales channel. The digital version, she says, takes care of that.