What separates a catalog that gets orders from one that gets skimmed? Not graphic design — structure. Eleven practices we see in the catalogs that perform, from pricing display to barcode handling to PDF hygiene.
Build your B2B catalog free →Wholesale price and suggested retail (RRP/PVP), side by side. The buyer's first mental calculation is their margin — do it for them. Catalogs that show only trade prices force buyers to guess and hesitate.
Orders arrive by SKU. If a buyer can't copy a reference without squinting, some orders will be wrong and support tickets will follow. Monospace font, right next to the price.
"Prices exclude VAT" in the footer or next to prices. Ambiguity here generates invoice disputes, not orders.
Buyers with a purchasing list navigate by category. "New arrivals" can be a highlighted section at the front, but the catalog body should be organized the way a buyer shops.
A simple full-width page with the category name makes a 60-page catalog feel navigable — and gives sales reps a natural presentation rhythm.
Page numbers, your logo, and contact info in the header or footer of every page. Catalogs get printed, split, and forwarded as single PDF pages.
Price-led categories (hardware, food distribution, industrial) convert better with dense grids or tables. Image-led categories (fashion, design, lifestyle) need larger photos and fewer products per page. One catalog can mix both: lookbook pages for hero products, dense tables for the range.
One product card with a compact size/color table beats five near-identical cards. It shortens the catalog and makes MOQ per variant visible.
If your products have EAN-13 codes, render them as crisp vector barcodes per variant. Retail buyers use them to onboard your assortment; blurry screenshots of barcodes get catalog pages ignored.
Exact A4 (210×297 mm) with margins, vector text and barcodes, 300 DPI images. A PDF that looks fine on a laptop but prints fuzzy or cuts content at page breaks costs credibility with professional buyers.
The catalog should be a view of your price list, not a separate document that drifts out of sync. Generate it from the same Excel/CSV your team maintains, and refresh it before every sales cycle, trade fair, and buyer meeting. The brands that win are those whose catalog is always current.