Target hands out brochure
Distributor launches downloadable product catalogue
Components distributor Target Com-ponents has opened up its new 100-page colour Reseller Product Brochure to all of its system builder and reseller customers, allowing them to download it and even rebrand it as their own for free.
Target claimed that large colour catalogu es are usually too expensive for smaller players to create, which is why it is allowing its customers to download its catalogue in PDF format and then customise it as they see fit.
Users can print the catalogue, email it as a PDF file to customers or link it up to their own web sites. The brochure also will be updated monthly and more than 1,000 downloads have taken place in recent weeks, according to Target.
The catalogue covers a wide range of IT components, with products displayed in colour and detailed specifications listed. Each product is accompanied by net and VAT-inclusive prices for volumes ranging from one to 20.
The customer's sell prices are determined by adding a fixed mark-up to the listed buy prices. Alternatively, customers can replace Target's product codes with their own.
For information purposes the price list also calculates margin, mark-up and profit per unit for each product line. Users can round up prices to the nearest pound or smaller denominations and can automatically set mark-up rates for certain products.
"The concept is a simple one," said Mike Goring, Target's marketing manager.
"We want to provide our resellers with every assistance possible to sell our products to their customers. With this in mind we have given them the facility to produce their own product brochure for a wide variety of our products.
"This is a sales tool for the customer that they could not produce for themselves without a great deal of cost and time involved.
"(The brochure) enables our resellers to provide a professional product listing to show to their customers and prospects. Effectively, our customers could use our stocks as their virtual warehouse, and the Reseller Product Brochure is the vehicle to do so."
Steve Hopkins, sales and new stores manager for system builder PC Friend, is already seeing the benefits. "It's an excellent sales tool and has opened up the full range of Target's products to us," he said.
"In the past with suppliers we have always been restricted by what we could offer in our store rooms because we can only get so much of any range in due to space.
"While we have always had a product list, it's not the same as having a full-colour catalogue. We have rebranded the catalogue as ours now; our next step is to link it into our web site."