Catalogs have stood the test of time. It all started in 1934 when Sears published their first holiday catalog. It is great to see catalogs, especially holiday catalogs, make a strong return to mailboxes. Marketing executives felt the internet would replace the printed...
The future of omnichannel marketing includes catalogs. Therefore, we're beginning to see an increase in catalog circulation. Here are a few noteworthy quotes from a recent article by Michael Dart and Greg Ellis from Kurt Salmon Consulting. "Lands’ End presented a...
The recent Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) proposal leaves catalogers and the ACMA in the fight of its life. The PRC is the federal regulator that oversees the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). It has given the USPS approval to speed up rate increases over the next five...
I am always amazed at the power of marketing and just how effective it can be when growing a business. Let’s take shaving company start-up Harry’s for example. In just six years, Harry’s is being sold to the owner of Schick for $1.37 billion as reported on May 9, 2019...
Determining how many catalogs to print and mail depends on first knowing your incremental break-even point. This will help you make the right financial decision for your company so that you don’t over (or under) circulate. Planning circulation without knowing your...
Catalogers face another postage increase on July 10, the second one in 2022. Having dealt with many of these throughout my career, I thought I’d review the history of rate increases over the years and their often-devastating impact on catalogs. It is not easy to...
The idea of creating a smaller prospecting catalog (same trim size but with fewer pages) full of best selling pick-up items is appealing and sounds like a logical thing to do. It saves money, or so it seems, and in theory has little if any impact on performance....
I’ve been a cataloger for over 45 years. Fresh out of the School of Business at Indiana University in 1971, I landed a job in the catalog marketing department for a subsidiary of Pitney Bowes selling price-marking equipment and supplies to small retailers. I was...
Over the years, we have all done dumb or stupid things which I’m sure didn’t seem so at the time. I can certainly look back over my 33 year career as a cataloger and think of things I did that were really dumb! To a large degree, this is all part of the learning...
