Some of you might remember that awhile back, I asked everyone how they went about getting a Ricoh Product Catalog of some kind on their website. The only answers I got were “link to the www.ricoh-usa.com site” or “Structured Web.” Neither answer was acceptable to me. We had done the Structured Web approach and the catalog was never anything close to current. The ricoh-usa link also linked our customers/prospects to every Ricoh competitor in our territory when they clicked on the “Sales and Service Locations” button. In addition, with Ricoh Directs becoming bigger threats, I didn’t like the idea of Ricoh knowing who was surfing their site and potentially passing that info on to the Direct Operations.
We decided to spend the money to have our own Ricoh catalog. Now that we have done it, we wondered how many other companies there were that might be willing to spend a small amount each month to have this catalog appear on their site. We still have some cosmetic enhancements in the works but if you go there, you can get an idea of what your catalog would look like if you used it. The address is www.cbs-digital.com and the cost would be $200 a month. This catalog would actually be integrated into your site with your frame surrounding every page of the catalog just like our frame now surrounds ours. You would also be able to pick and choose which products would show on your catalog in case there are Ricoh products you don’t sell. For instance, we don’t sell the PriPort but if you do, your catalog would show them. We would probably also establish some sort of minimum expectation such as, “updates within 72 hours of Ricoh’s announcement.”
Let me know if this sounds like something your company might like to investigate further. My email is jim@cbs-digital.com or you can call me at (800) 284-4270.
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