When was the last time your company produced a printed catalog? You might want to consider the effectiveness of a printed catalog for certain regions such as in China. In Apr 2013, we polled Chinese cell culture researchers regarding what catalogs they used in the last month to purchase life science research products and whether it was in print or online format. Results below show that catalog usage varies tremendously. For certain leading suppliers (e.g. Life Technologies, New England Biolabs) respondents indicate they generally use both online and print catalog formats for ordering.  For other leading suppliers there is significant usage of one format for ordering (e.g. 10 percentage point difference in use of TaKaRa print/online catalogs versus Sigma print/online catalogs).

A variety of reasons may lead to the preference in use, including the quality of reference information contained in a print catalog, usability of a company website and, from a practical standpoint, if a print version of your catalog can be readily obtained. We suggest seeking input from your China office about how you can make ordering easier for your customers (and future customers!) Alternatively, give us a call (in US and Canada 877 597 9236, everywhere else 760 431 6300) and we can help you get the answers you need.

Figure: Usage of printed and/or online catalogs. Q. which company’s printed (online) catalog did you use most frequently in the past month?