Oriflame uses iPaper to sell products, reduce costs and recruit brand partners
With a yearly net sale of 1 billion euros, Oriflame is one of the biggest health & beauty direct selling companies in the world. They have successfully built a diverse portfolio of products sold and marketed through approximately 3 million Oriflame brand partners.
In 2020, COVID put enormous pressure on the way Oriflame and its brand partners were used to running their business.
“When COVID hit, physical meetings were not possible. Completely locked down. We saw a huge spike in all types of digital activity. Browsing website, the app, use of the digital catalog.” – Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
The need for digital transformation became more imminent, especially for the most important selling tool - the printed catalog. One of the key objectives was to increase the use of digital channels to activate homebound brand partners and inspire socially distanced shoppers.
Implementing digital catalogs in the sales process became a priority for Oriflame.
”The main initial goal of the digital catalog was to make sure that brand partners were allowed to transition their business, and move a larger part of the shopping experience into digital.” – Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
The reason for focusing on digital catalogs was to make the transition from the traditional ways of selling as easy as possible:
It mimics the traditional catalog behavior in a way brand representatives are familiar with.”
Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
And that familiarity paved the way for immediate and growing results.
The more readers you attract, the larger is the volume of potential buyers. Therefore, part of Oriflame’s success with digital catalog launch is shown in the number of monthly sessions.
Each month, more than 5 million combined sessions are recorded in Oriflame’s digital catalogs, and 30% of all website visitors read the digital catalog.
”Huge activity, which was also one of the objectives.” - Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
The number of sessions is important. But perhaps equally important is the experience Oriflame can offer when a shopper opens the digital catalog.
Contrary to print, digital catalogs provide the possibility to add enrichments. Such as shopping functionality, icons and content like videos or animations.
Desktop recording showing Oriflame's dedication to creating engaging digital catalogs.
Oriflame understands that this is key for providing an engaging digital experience. Therefore, their print catalog team have started creating this interactive content for the digital catalog, on top of their usual responsibilities.
“You can be more interactive than in print. I think our brand partners and new customers are very inspired when they can see how to – for example – apply our skin care products. Having that opportunity with iPaper is definitely helping us.” – Sofie Gauw, Team Lead, Adoption & Support
A testament to their success in creating engaging content is that Oriflame catalogs are shared online more than 500,000 times each month.
It shows the engagement that the digital catalogs have been driving, because brand partners wouldn’t share it if they don’t see a benefit in it.”
Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
Today, shoppers are often not just active on a single online channel, but several.
Therefore, the Oriflame digital catalog is not just available on a lonesome URL. Instead, it is directly accessible on their website and mobile app, with the catalog basket integrated with the Oriflame ecommerce setup.
Oriflame's digital catalog available in their mobile app with integrated shopping cart.
This enables the digital catalog to function as an ecommerce channel, while reducing friction for the end-user in the buying process.
”This was very important from a user perspective, to make it easier to shop in the catalog. Less clicks, not opening a new tab.” – Sofie Gauw, Team Lead, Adoption & Support
And the benefit of a smooth digital catalog shopping experience shows: 10% of all global orders and 20% of all Oriflame products added to the basket are now through the digital catalog.
So, this is a significant way of selling and processing our orders.”
Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
The digital catalog is also integrated in the Oriflame business app. This way, brand representatives can share the digital catalog with their network and receive orders via WhatsApp or email.
Mobile browser recording of an Oriflame digital catalog. Notice the possibility to check out via Email or WhatsApp.
As a final testament to Oriflame’s prioritization of digital catalogs in the customer journey, their data indicate that 15-20% of all first-time customers have logged a session in a digital catalog, at some point during their buying journey.
Brand partners are essential to the success of direct selling companies. And Oriflame uses the digital catalog to recruit new brand partners.
”We also want to use digital catalog as a means of recruitment. We do not just sell Oriflame products, but also the Oriflame opportunity. That opportunity starts with the products, and those are very nicely displayed in the digital catalog.” - Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
But can digital catalogs also be used to re-activate inactive brand partners, who are not currently selling Oriflame products?
“We did not prepare for it, but the clear answer is yes. We are now encouraging active brand partners to push the digital catalog to their inactive network.” – Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
Finally, there is the benefit of reducing printing costs as the prices on paper skyrockets, while also increasing the digital reach.
”There is no print cost. The volume is completely scalable with no major additional costs. Distribution is completely problem free. Everyone has an internet connection.” – Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
When Oriflame was first looking for a digital catalog solution, they needed an established, ready-to-use software to quickly get started.
“We thought that the iPaper product together with the support structure was a very good match for us, and would enable us to deliver as fast as we needed to. Which actually happened. We’re grateful for that.” - Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
One of the reasons Oriflame was able to move faster with iPaper was the use of Enrichment Automation to automatically create shop icons and apply different currencies in minutes instead of hours.
“We’re working in 50+ markets, so we need to ensure that the right information is applied to the right catalogs in the right markets.” - Sofie Gauw, Team Lead, Adoption & Support
The ease of adding enrichments is one of the big reasons why we use iPaper.”
Marcus Fogel, Senior Director Global Digital Services
One of the ambitious goals Oriflame has with iPaper is to further automate the process of creating, enriching and distributing digital catalogs, wherever possible.
“Now we’re also looking to integrate a Google Feed for a fully automated process with pricing, stock and product information.” – Sofie Gauw, Team Lead, Adoption & Support
The reduction of manual work using automation is and will be a point of focus moving forward.
“Automated processes in 2022, that is something we have to count on. We’re trying to remove as much manual work as possible.” – Sofie Gauw, Team Lead, Adoption & Support
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