How a one-stop-shop digital catalog transformed Specialty sales for Melissa & Doug

Melissa & Doug’s Specialty Sales Team found Flipsnack while searching to simplify ordering processes for their customers. Through Flipsnack, their product catalogs became easily accessible for their sales representatives and more appealing to customers. Despite being implemented less than two months prior, the results were staggering, as a large portion of their sales came from one flippable digital catalog alone.

Let’s take a closer look at how their use of Flipsnack increased customer engagement and purchasing efficiency.

About

Melissa & Doug is among the leading children’s toy manufacturers recognized nationally and globally for its timeless toys. Since 1988, Melissa & Doug have worked hard to bring their dream to life by designing meaningful toys. Their mission is to take back childhood and reignite the imagination of children by reducing screen time and inspiring curiosity about themselves, their environments, and the nature around them.

The challenge

Order placements are essential for Melissa & Doug’s customer base. Retailers and business partners, big or small, use their comprehensive annual product catalog to place orders. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Melissa & Doug relied on printed catalogs. However, while the printing and delivery costs of the catalogs were high, they didn’t bring any feedback from customers.

When the pandemic hit, they switched to using several digital tools for their ordering processes. Customers had to cross-reference several platforms for product lists, descriptions, and visuals, then place orders in yet another tool resulting in a lot of hassle. While the orders did come, the process was too tedious for their customers, so the search for an alternative began.

The solution

Melissa & Doug’s sales team discovered Flipsnack through a Google search. After a 5-minute run down of the platform, they decided it was exactly what they were looking for. Through a one-stop-shop catalog, Flipsnack made their sales reps and customers happy while simplifying the lives of everyone involved.

Let’s zoom in and understand how Flipsnack helped them overcome their challenges.

Streamlined order processes with automated shopping lists

Once Tracy and Jenn discovered our product, Tracy’s mission was to design their digital catalog in Flipsnack. They created it from scratch because it needed to be extensive enough to include all their 700 products.

When the catalog template was designed, Flipsnack’s automation feature populated their catalog with all the necessary product information: name, description, image, links, etc. This saved them more than 50% of the time it would have taken to do it manually.

With shopping list integration, it was a done deal for them. This feature allowed them to receive customer orders from the catalog directly to their inbox. After less than two months, they were impressed with the results:

Sharing private catalogs effortlessly

The diversity of Melissa & Doug’s toys results in large catalogs, leading to high printing costs in the past. With Flipsnack, those catalogs reach their customers through something as simple as a link, email, or QR code.

After the catalog was created, Tracy shared the link with her team. Their sales reps mainly include the link in their email signature or have the QR available for any commercial opportunity whenever these may arise, like what happened to Jenn at a trade show:

Melissa & Doug’s specialty retailers loved the change

The feedback didn’t only come in the form of trackable statistics but actual opinions. These were all positive, and the results were most visible in how satisfied retailers and business partners were with their ordering flow:

Results

• A more appealing and effective way for their sales reps to show their products
• A large portion of their orders came from the shopping list catalog in less than two months
• 2292 catalog views & 2 h 9 min. avg. time spent by customers exploring the catalog
• A 215-page catalog with 700 products created directly in Flipsnack
• Reduced the catalog-making process duration by more than 50% through automation.

Conclusion

The Melissa & Doug Specialty Sales team views Flipsnack as a valuable tool for their ordering process. The smooth transition from several digital documents to a one-stop-shop digital catalog makes them excited for their end-of-year results when they compare the numbers before and after Flipsnack.