February 27, 2019

Almost every direct selling company has a catalog as the foundation of their business model. They're not relying on complex ecommerce setups to support a direct selling model.

The make or break of direct selling is to empower your representatives to stay connected with their consumer base. And that connection is the catalog. It shows the products that can be bought from the representatives. And checkout often happens in person or through a phone call.

The real challenge is to make sure the connection between consumer and representative is not lost in a digital world. And that is achieved by using the most popular messaging app in the world and integrating it directly in the purchase flow of the digital catalog.

That's why we've launched WhatsApp checkout!

No longer do consumers need to order products over the phone, via email or have a consultation in person. No longer do sales representatives have to reuse old catalogs that might be damaged or just incredibly out of date. And, no longer will they have to drive from house to house and risk getting stuck in traffic and missing out on a sale.

It can all be done directly from your online catalog, over WhatsApp.

📖 Read more: How Yves Rocher gets over 1 million sessions averaging 4 minutes spend in digital catalog

When integrated, shoppers can add products to basket as they flick through the catalog. Then, when ready to checkout, their basket is sent directly over WhatsApp to their local rep.

The rep is then immediately notified of their order and can confirm when it will arrive.

It's the simple, smooth checkout we've all been waiting for and will ensure your customers have the best experience possible.

Since the launch we've reached over 100,000 WhatsApp checkout transactions across our direct selling customers.

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“We saw results immediately after enabling WhatsApp checkout. Our shoppers say that this helps them have a fast, direct route to purchase and our sales force loves the flexibility WhatsApp checkout offers them.”

Andrea Signori, Digital Manager at Stanhome

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If you want to learn how to enable WhatsApp checkout on your catalogs, read our latest help article.

February 1, 2019

On January 12, 2016, Microsoft announced the end of support for IE8, IE9, and IE10. That means those browsers have stopped receiving security updates, compatibility fixes, and technical support.

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For three years now, Internet Explorer 11 has been the last and only version to receive updates. The use of any other IE browser versions is therefore not recommended due to security concerns. As an example, there are several known vulnerabilities recently fixed in Internet Explorer 11. But as IE7, IE8, IE9, and IE10 are no longer updated or patched, its users are potentially at risk (Source).

Microsoft's decisions to end software support will, however, not sway our decisions on whether to code in support for it in iPaper. The final decision is up to you, our users.

The generally accepted statistic on which to end support for a browser is when fewer than 1% is using it. But we have decided to go lower than that.
Over the course of 2018, we saw a clear drop in the number of users on IE10, from 0.80% in January to 0.02% in December.
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Will this impact my use of iPaper?

The answer is most likely no. Should you be one of the 0.02% who visits iPaper using IE10 there are other options available such as Chrome or Firefox.

But if you are absolutely forced to stay on IE10 on your PC, please note that iPaper will indeed stop working from one day to the next, starting April 2019.

Should you have any questions on this or other iPaper related matters, please be sure to reach out to us.

January 1, 2019

As you undoubtedly know the statistics page of your flipbooks can give time specific details, this time-based visitor data was previously shown in the same time zone (universal standard time).
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We have now introduced a time zone setting that is available from Settings > General > Region on an Account, Folder, and Flipbook level. This assures that your timezone settings match the location of your readers.

You can even double-check your time zone settings right from the statistics page and jump to change them directly if needed.
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December 17, 2018

Sometimes when you're selling a product with technical specs or when you want to include relevant information, you need the room to explain.

Cluttering a catalog page with information like that isn't exactly inspiring or necessarily appealing visually, so that's why we've made it possible to add more text and multiple images to your pop-up product views so that you can give your readers a more well-rounded and informative shopping experience.
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Moreover, once the reader knows more about the product, including the latest price, they're more likely to want to act. So, giving them the right information within your Flipbook will only shorten the buying cycle and make it easier for your shoppers to buy!

It's a win-win.

This new link type cannot be manually created by you, however. To use it, you'll need iPaper's Enrichment Automation (CLI) feature. This relies on unique item identifiers, such as item ID's, product codes or even simply the product URL's to be included in your uploaded PDF. Once this is set up, every link will be automated!

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To get started on your product-details-views, check out our getting started technical guide here. On this page you can find all the technical details and requirements. Better yet, contact us, and we'll walk you through it.