Apparel Sale :: Catalogs are Making a Comback!

For anyone who questions the validity of paper catalogs to boost a companies apparel sale, be cynical no more!!!

Apparel Sale :: Original Sears Catalog :: courtesy of PrinctonImaging.com

The catalog itself has a long history and began back in the early 1890's with Richard Sears.  Sears, a railroad station attendant, knew that farmers in rural communities had no other place to shop than a local general store.  Because the general store was the only gig in town, they could  mark up their merchandise to whatever they wanted.  When Sears partnered with Chicago businessman Alvah C. Roebuck; together, they brought the first Sears and Roebuck store, and catalog, to fruition.

What happened next though was quite unexpected.  The catalog became a huge source of entertainment for the rural families who enjoyed leafing through the large 300+ pages, dreaming of the fashions the "big city types" would dress in.  Children would dog ear pages of toys that they wanted. Farmers could get their much needed equipment at a much reduced price.  The catalog went from being a source of sales for the company to a source of enjoyment for familes; in short, it was truly remarkable on many, many levels and ultimately gave these familes something to look forward to. 

It's hard to believe that a catalog could be so magical.

Over the years, catalogs continued to be a source of enjoyment for kids, espcially during back-to-school time. Grabbing the monstrous JC Penny catalogs off the front stoop, carefully folding over pages with outfits we liked, and choosing just the right outfit for the first day of school.  Then, technology happened.  More and more people went online to shop and catalog ordering became less frequent; as a result, many companies stopped sending them.

But rejoice my fellow page-turners!! The catalog is back! Why you might ask? Because it turns out that many people like to leaf through the catalog, and then go online and order.  Not only that, many companies are finding that, with the influx of stores online, sometimes a catalog is the only way to get their name in front of potential new clients.  If a potential customer sees something in the catalog they're interested in, they're much more likely to hop on the web and surf to purchase.

 

Apparel Sale :: Results of eHoliday Consumer Survey 2007 :: Shop.org

In total, approximately 19 billion to 20 billion catalogs are mailed out each year, and the number is rising according to Hamilton Davison, executive director of the American Catalog Mailers Association. And it turns out all those catalogs are increasing the sales of the companies they represent.

According to the 2007 State of Retailing Online Report, published jointly by Shop.org and Forrester Research Inc., retailers report that one third of online shoppers start out purchasing items from catalogs.  Online retailers generated $220 billion in revenues in 2006 and that's projected to grow 18 percent to $259 billion in 2007; “We have seen in our data that there is a direct correlation between catalog mailing and online sales increasing,” Scott Silverman of Shop.org has said.

But some in the industry question how long paper catalogs will be around, especially given the recent hikes in postage rates.  The increased shipping costs are a “horrible threat to the industry,” said Lois Boyle, president of Mission, Kans.-based direct marketing agency J. Schmid & Assoc. Inc.  Boyle explained that the increase hit the catalog industry harder than others in direct marketing, with an average 40 percent increase in postage. 

In response, retailers have made some changes to their cataloges, including  making them thinner  and there has been a trend towards more specialized versions of the books. Lands’ End Inc. and LL Bean both have separate catalogs for their different departments including women's wear, men's wear, children's wear, and other items that they each carry.

At any rate, it looks like catalogs are here to stay.  With a group of shoppers that are increasingly busy, they help people choose what they want ahead of time, so all they have to do is log-on and check-out!