Robinsons ramp up production with Catalog’nTime

The need for more publications, shorter lead times on products and less time between mailings called for a better way of producing catalogues. Delays to catalogues costs money, the larger the operation the greater the potential for loss.

The premier equestrian supplier in the UK, Robinsons produce 5-8 publications annually of up to 300 pages each. In addition to the catalogue, products are sold through their superstore near Haydock. A true multi-channel retailer, Robinsons need consistency of description, pricing and photography and a single source managing the core data. Catalog’nTime was chosen because of its ability to take data from other systems, helping Robinsons maintain a central repository for catalogue and web. Everything from catalogues to shelf-edge labels are done in-house, including photography, copy writing and proofing.

“We’ve cut 3 weeks off our main catalogue schedule and we are still new to the system!” Jill Deane - marketing manager

The success of the project is down to the enthusiasm and competence of Robinsons’s staff

Introducing vCatalog

Timstar - a single source for web and catalogue, what does it take?

Timstar supplies laboratory equipment to schools colleges and other educational establishments. An established family company, they take pride in efficiency, promptness and the personal touch and realize that good systems and productivity are key.

The Managing Director, Phil Tomlinson set himself the task of shortening the time taken to produce the catalogue as well as driving the web and catalogue from their in-house system Khaos so that a single system would provide content for web and paper catalogues. A technically astute person, Tomlinson knew exactly how he wished to accomplish the task; it remained for him to find a solution that would meet his needs. Crucially he wanted the same content and grouping for the web, acknowledging that the web serves a different purpose and is used in a different way to a catalogue. The solution proposed was vCatalog PIM (product information management system) and WebPower vShop and vContent for the web. With vCatalog catalogue production software the skill is building the templates that produce groups on pages. Who ever works with the software for the first time falls into the trap of assuming that Templates apply to page. Timstar quickly understood the issues and reduced the catalogue to four templates. The great thing about dealing with Timstar was that they were very quick to understand and act on the concepts making the whole process much more dynamic. Lockside’s concept is not to write off the first catalogue as a learning experience but to ensure that the system provides savings from the start. There is never any attempt to hide the “brain strain” aspect of catalogue production. Many prospective customers look for ease of use when they are evaluating software when they need power and flexibility. What is important is how efficient and how productive the software is, because that is where the return on investment comes from, a point entirely recognised by Timstar. A well designed PIM, (vCatalog) where products can be grouped and groups moved with ease makes the task more efficient, especially when data can be imported from spread sheets and pictures attached largely automatically. The easy bit is the final production of pages. Using Catalog’nTime, page production rates can be up to 100 pages per day or better. Updating with final prices is an overnight job. Timstar made the job light work through meticulous preparation of images and content, minimising proofing.

vCatalog the low budget option for smaller catalogues

A.C.Leigh opted for vCatalog for their first venture into catalogues. With an exceptional range of architectural ironmongery, a quality catalogue is the only way to bring the best of their 20,000 plus stock to their customers. The leading architectural ironmonger in the East of England, A.C.Leigh supplies Ironmongery for projects nationwide. They have 4 branches in East Anglia, each with highly experienced and well trained staff. Quality door handles and architectural ironwork is of such importance to architects that short of seeing and touching it, a catalogue is the only way to convey its quality. For their first attempt it was important not only to keep the expenditure to a minimum but to be able to update it without going through the pain of doing it all over again. vCatalog was exactly what they were looking for. Every company has a stock list and for those wanting to produce a catalogue that is the only starting point. The catalogue manager, Lloyd Bluett had the unenviable task of picking, describing and collating the products for the catalogue. The in-house system was of little help because like most stock control systems it has cryptic titles and little or no description. vCatalog’s image database eased the problem of relating pictures to products and being able to view what had been selected. Lockside’s designers helped with the design of the catalogue as well as doing the layout and pre-press.

Technical Corner

Catalog’nTime now supports InDesign CS3 and Quark XPress 7 for Macintosh and PC.

New! support for automatic size, colour and size extraction from lists of products. An example might be “Cashmere plain Zola Zip available in Black, Hyacinth, Flannel grey and Oatmeal, Sizes: 34”, 36”,38”, 40” and 42” which would be automatically created from a list of products. In the above case 25 product lines are reduced to a single descriptive paragraph. The steps would be to import a product list from the organisation’s main system, define the commas or spaces between sizes and what to do with the last size e.g. “and” or “or”and let the program do the rest, saving hours of time and the potential for errors. This is a major issue when interchanging data between systems

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