How Kaplan turned its print catalogs into shoppable digital catalogs that educators spend real time with
Location: United States
Industry: Education / Educational Supplies
Website: https://www.kaplanco.com/
About Kaplan Early Learning Company
Kaplan Early Learning Company has served early childhood education for over 50 years. Its range runs from classroom furniture to curricula, and its Gryphon House imprint publishes books for educators. One belief drives all of it: play and learning go hand in hand.
Catalogs sit at the heart of how Kaplan reaches educators. The team produces 10 catalogs a year, covering every age group from infants through elementary, plus specialist areas like technology and playgrounds. They go out to hundreds of thousands of educators and early childhood professionals across the United States.
The challenge
Before 2024, Kaplan published its catalogs online as PDF flipbooks. They sat in a small window on the website, which made some of the text hard to read.
Buying was harder still. When an educator spotted a product they liked, they had to leave the catalog to look it up, or remember the details and search for it after browsing.
"It was also difficult for customers to move from looking at our catalogs to buying our products."
The Publitas solution
Kaplan moved its catalogs to Publitas in early 2024. Jackson Wood started the project while on Kaplan’s print production team, which is under the leadership of art director Heidi Patterson. He’s since moved into an editorial and metadata role, and he still builds and publishes every digital catalog himself.
Setup was quick. The team had a couple of early hiccups while learning the platform, and once they found where the code went on their website, the ecommerce integration was simple. Educators can now go from a catalog page to their cart without leaving the catalog.
A catalog takes Jackson anywhere from under a day to 3 days to build, depending on its size. Kaplan’s print schedule hasn’t changed, but the digital version now goes live on the website weeks before some customers receive the print copy.
A faster way through 290 pages
The Early Childhood Education (ECE) catalog runs to about 290 pages. To reach a section, shoppers had to click through spread by spread or scroll the sidebar page list. Getting to anything near the back took a while.
For the 2025 ECE catalog, Kaplan added a custom navigation menu so viewers can jump straight to any part of the catalog.
The value
Kaplan tracks each catalog in Publitas analytics, watching opens, page views, hotspot clicks, adds to cart and revenue. In GA4, the team built an audience of catalog users from the past 30 days to follow the revenue those users generate.
Jackson’s go-to measure is one he created himself: page views per open. Across almost 3 years of data for Kaplan’s 2 biggest catalogs, ECE and Infants, Toddlers and Twos (ITT), it has never dropped below 15. At its peak, it reached 55.
In other words, educators who open a Kaplan catalog keep turning pages.
"This tells me that our catalogs have more than just a surface-level appeal to users. Users are sufficiently compelled to spend time with the catalogs and see what they have to offer."
Kaplan will keep using Publitas for digital versions of all its catalogs.
"Publitas is an excellent resource for elevating the digital functionality of your catalogs and streamlining the connection between catalogs and ecommerce. [Publitas has] always been quick to respond to our questions and [has] always shown willingness to help us improve our catalogs."
Advice to other education and B2B retailers
"We would highly recommend that they use Publitas. The catalog-editor interface is easy to use, and no coding/development experience is required. The ecommerce integration creates a seamless customer experience between browsing your catalog and purchasing your products."
If you think your company can benefit from similar customer solutions please contact our Enterprise Team.
