With Christmas now less than three months off, our mailboxes are increasingly filled with catalogs. (And I’m not going to say that these are “holiday” catalogs; if Christmas didn’t exist we wouldn’t be seeing this surge.)
The number of catalogs is certainly less than it once was. According to the Direct Marketing Association it peaked in 2007 with over 19.6 billion catalogs being mailed. Despite a small uptick in 2013 by last year it was down to 10.6 billion. That’s still a lot of trees.
Catalogs are at the center of multi-channel marketing for many retailers – year round. They are sent out in such large numbers because they still work. Many people enjoy the tactile feel of paper and browsing through large, colorful displays of products. Many retailers have adapted their catalog creative approach, adding more storytelling. Large retailers may have dozens of different versions of their catalog. Retailers can track that when they send out catalogs, their online sales increase. Various retailers have found that customers who receive catalogs spend more.
Of course, when people visit their websites retailers can also then target them with remarketing ads.
The sale of ebooks seems to have peaked and stabilized at around 25-30% of the market. We haven’t hit that point with catalogs yet, but it could be coming, since there is a good, trackable synergy between print catalogs and online.
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