How to make a price list: the key aspects to consider

A price list differs from a catalog in more ways than its essential look and inclusion of essential information. The principal aim of a price list is to present product information, such as pricing, quantities, and measurements, and the information related to the sale of each item (company and purchasing information). Price lists have no promotion or brand awareness aims, as is the case with a product catalog. A price list is 100% functional to sales.

A price list is used as a sales tool, since it is distributed to both actual and potential clients to present a firm’s product range, but this is not the only aim of a price list. A price list can also be used internally to catalog a firm’s own products, to handle data related to different items’ information and pricing, and to transmit information about the product to the company’s various departments, agents, and suppliers.

Finally, a price list can be a valuable integration element of a firm’s multichannel strategy. It can, for instance, be complementary to a product catalog.

For businesses looking to combine pricing with storytelling and brand identity, a pricebook might be a better fit than a simple price list.

Price lists are usually made based on the market segment a firm or department wants to reach. It can be drawn up in a variety of languages and reflect many currencies. Creators can choose to insert only some products or to include all available items, and special editions can be made to coincide with specific promotions or seasons. Above all, a price list requires one fundamental characteristic: flexibility and the possibility for constant updating.

It is possible to choose between making a price list that is used only digitally and making one to be printed, and differences can be significant. That’s a curious fact that the point of choice between digital or paper pricing lists are considered while hosting a detailed sales analytics. If, on one hand, a digital price list has the benefits of being easy to distribute, low production costs, and being embeddable within a website, on the other hand, it loses all the benefits related to the paper format. These can be summed up in terms of their user-friendliness, improved readability, and, most of all, the fact that receiving a physical copy of a price list establishes a closer relationship between a company and the list’s user, which improves the probability that the catalog will be consulted, even at a later stage. The paper format must be considered, but it should also be integrated with a firm’s online tools; this can be done, for example, with the use of QR codes.

A price list contains several different parts. Let’s consider the fundamental ones related to the document itself:

• Cover and back cover
• Thumb index
• Introduction pages: descriptions, advertising
• Chapter separators
• Table of contents: presented in alphabetical order, by code, or by category
• Final pages: company and purchasing information, notes

As for information related to the products, as mentioned above, this information is essential. Below are the principal pieces of information to be included:

• Product name
• SKU
• Description
• Image
• Price
• Additional attributes (colors, measurements, etc.)

The essential steps when you have to make a price list are as follows:

1. Gather all product data and images
2. Create a layout
3. Begin the publishing process

Product data

Product data are typically found in a firm’s database or enterprise resource planning system (e.g., SAP, Oracle, IBM AS400, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Infor, ePromis, etc.), or in Excel, SQL, or XML files.

Making a price list’s layout

The layout is the graphical structure is applied to the entire price list, so it reflects the design you desire. During the layout phase, be sure to establish how every element will be dealt with. For help with this, you can always approach an agency or a graphic designer, or complete this step independently, if you have a good knowledge of graphics software such as InDesign.

The publishing process

The publishing process includes inserting the product data and images into the graphic layout. This process can be manual, that is, copying and pasting every piece of data into your layout using your preferred graphics tool, or automatic, making the price list directly from your data file. Let’s examine the differences between these two publishing processes.

Making a price list using a manual publishing process means that you must insert your products’ information into your layout one piece at a time, using your preferred graphics tool (the most suitable one for this task is Adobe InDesign). This publishing method can lead to some considerable disadvantages. If you decide to make a price list manually, this task can require lot of time and employ several human resources, especially if the price list is composed of thousands of products. Moreover, it is necessary to be a master of certain skills embedded in the graphics tools to achieve a professional result.

To overcome these problems, the automatic publishing process has become popular in recent years. Using this method, business data are automatically transformed into a finished document, without the need to manually insert information into the layout. The automatic nature of the process leads to great time and costs savings, frees the graphics and marketing departments from long and onerous tasks, and produces accurate and precise graphics results.

Pagination is a cloud-based price list maker software that enables users to take data from any business software (Excel, Access, SQL, Magento, Prestashop, and more) and automatically make a price list in both PDF and InDesign formats. Your price list will always be updated and ready to print or send for digital distribution. This approach is driven by great ease of use and the benefits of the cloud platform, which enables you to create documents anywhere, and at any time.