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This is an automatic reply to your query at widgetworld.com, based upon the keyword: <catalog>
WIDGETWORLD IS PAPERLESS. THERE IS NO PRINT CATALOG. EVERYTHING YOU NEED - THE ENTIRE WIDGETWORLD CATALOG - IS ON THE WIDGETWORLD.COM WEBSITE. AGAIN, NO PRINTED PAPER CATALOG EXISTS.
A few of these kept getting through because of misspellings, so we had to expand the filter to catch 'catolog' 'catilog' etc.
I wonder if Amazon gets paper catalog requests?
A parallel topic: how many eCommerce sites get requests to place orders by phone, and do you, then? Does Amazon take phone orders?
We do explicitly accept telephone orders. We love our customers and love to talk to them.
We answer all general question phone calls directly by a live human being within 5 rings, on a toll-free number, usually with a smile. But I get the impression most catalog-requestors are what that old realty ad on TV called "Looky-Loos", ie: send me literature so I can think about it. Our entire product line, including prices and full ordering functionality, is onsite and updated daily. Any need for paper is purely psychological.
But as far as catalogs go, we quit our paper version about 3 years ago, when it got to the point where it was obsolete before it even got printed. All we have now is PDF and what is on our ecommerce site.
But I love the term "Treeware" - in fact I am going to steal it and put it on our site about our PDF catalogs saving a tree.
The funny thing is that I never hear from any of them again, which tells me that they just like to collect free catalogs.
But now they are very expensive unless you are doing huge quantities, take weeks or months of design work, the products available change every 39 minutes, it costs way too much to send them out.
We finally gave up on our last catalog. Had about 10,000 made up, sent out all of them over the ensuing 4 months or so, and after tracking it for a while we figured out that our "ROI" - that people that ordered vs the number of catalogs - was less than 2%. So that was it.
So now about 1-2 times a year we send out a postcard to our mailing list reminding them to check out our website for exciting new products. And we get better results than we did with the catalog...
[edited by: lorax at 3:42 pm (utc) on Oct. 27, 2006]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]
Somebody else mentioned his catalog was obsolete the day it was printed. Us too. My inventory and prices change all the time; it's impossible to step in that same river twice. I wholesale shiny precious metal widgets. Raw silver bullion prices, currency exchange and duty rates all fluctuate widely. Each design comes in several sizes too, and each order is composed of hundreds of tiny variables.
Catalogs kill trees. They eat up petroleum to send, and they fill landfills to bursting. I am SO very happy I launched my website. It's a whole new wonderful world.
As a consumer, I started buying online, excited to transcend the primitive old tree-killing ways. Then I discovered the {self-deleted set of expletives} creeps were all selling my data in mailing lists. All of a sudden my postal mailbox was crammed with paper garbage every day. I've made it my mission to get it to stop. I call every one of them and ask to be taken off their mailing list. One by one I've been getting them removed from my mailstream. Man, it's a huge and seemingly endless Sisyphean task.
I'm obsessed because it really upsets me on a lot of levels. The volume of paper crap is staggering. These creeps are killing the planet. Some things should be more important than the blind pursuit of profit, damn all else; I'm sure 99.9% of the corporations out there would consider that statement heresy.
Back to Amazon, I'm sure some corporate actuary in their employ has told them they could squeeze out an extra single-digit percentage of annual profit if they mailed out catalogs. I'm so very grateful they have apparently decided it's just not worth doing, regardless.
Sometimes a Luddite will call and say she doesn't have a computer. Her son printed out the contact page for her so she could call in. It's as if she's telling me she doesn't own a telephone. Sorry lady, with all due (feigned) respect: we can't help you.
That might be a bit over the top.
We also used to have a catalog, so we still get requests for a catalog every day.
Personally, I wish we did still have one, but i don't write the checks.
The volume of paper crap is staggering...
That is for sure.
I just tossed out about 300 pounds of phone directories into the recycle bin. And none of them were ever even taken out of their plastic wrappers. We never use phone books, yet we get about 10 copies of every one every made, in 2 languages, about every 2 months.
And the amount of junk mail is horrible. As bad as email spam. I must get 10-20 a week just from people pushing credit cards (and we have not used a credit card since 1997).
Yet repeated requests for a CD version phone directory - which would be a lot more useful and a lot cheaper to make - fall on deaf ears.
[edited by: Wlauzon at 3:33 am (utc) on Oct. 28, 2006]
Exceptions to this standard practice: A small percentage of the brochure requests come from prospective "trade" customers - businesspeople who would perhaps like to sell products they've seen on our site in their brick & mortar shops, or who want to set up a franchise selling our products in their locality (for example, we only sell in the UK, but might use them as a distributor for their own country). Those people are definitely worth chasing up usually one of our sales team will contact them directly to discuss options. I think it's worth our time to check through the email enquiries to get those people (we don't have an automatic reply to words like "brochure").
As Itsallballbearings pointed out, a lot of those requesting catalogs are older folks who either don't have a computer or are uncomfortable with computers. Unfortunately, our particular market share includes these people and they're the ones with the money right now.
So, occasionally, when I have time, I will ask the caller what specific type of widget they want and will print off a few pictures and descriptions and snail mail them. I have to say that in general it's a waste of my time. However, this year I picked up two new customers through this method and both have spent well over $1000, so from that point of view it was worth while. (One customer finally got his own PC and now calls in his orders of merchandise off our web site.)
In general I agree that for businesses like mine paper catalogs are a waste of time, money, trees and effort.
Much of the reason for it comes from my own exasperation with some of the phone calls I receive. You get the guys who find our toll-free phone number by visually scanning the Contact page but somehow missed the text about catalogs. If you saw how we've laid it out, I think you'd be as baffled by this as I am. Then once they have me on the phone, they ask the same question 3 times or more.
Example:
Q. Hello. I was wondering if you could tell me who's buried in Grant's tomb?
A. Um, that would be Grant, sir.
Q. Grant?
A. Yes.
Q. But who's buried there?
A. Grant is, sir.
Q. In the tomb?
..and it goes on and on. You think I'm exaagerating. Most people grasp the scenario easily. But every now and then a dim bulb engages us in a similar dialog about catalogs:
Q. "Hello, do you have a catalog?"
A. "Sir, no printed paper catalog exists. We are a purely online, Internet-based business. Everything you need to order is on the website."
Q. "You don't have a catalog?"
A. "That's right"
Q. "Yeah, but how can I get a catalog?"
etc.
I'd guess particularly bulk orders require some sort of extra communcation other than the pure website information. We make two thirds of our turnaround that way.
Many of our suppliers still aren't able to supply us with database-compatible files for importing their prices and products. All we can get in mpost cases is some obscure excel sheets or pdfs (the latter with much of the text stored as graphics).
Nevertheless I have put one of these pdfs for download, covering four times as many products as I have in my database. It has 70MByte, but people seem to download it regularly. Again we made quite a lot of extra cash with that.
I'm planning to extend that and offer much more catalogue material for download.
It is much more work to make those deals but you get an excellent idea of the long tail waiting for you.
Back to Amazon, I'm sure some corporate actuary in their employ has told them they could squeeze out an extra single-digit percentage of annual profit if they mailed out catalogs. I'm so very grateful they have apparently decided it's just not worth doing, regardless.
Actually Amazon does mail out printed catalogs... Have one laying on my desk at work. Mostly tools and home/garden items listed in it. They probably have other niche catalogs as well.
We started out as strictly an e-commerce company. Like everyone here, we kept getting requests for a printed catalog. So we gave it a shot on a smallish scale and was very pleased with the results.
We now design our own printed catalogs in-house, and we've had great success with them. Our latest one went out a few weeks back (80 pages, full color, 60,000 copies). Like Amazon, we focus our catalogs on niche markets.
We have a catalog request link on each website for which there is a printed catalog available. We have found that about 15% of our visitors request a printed catalog.
We have found that a printed catalog adds legitimacy to our business in the eyes of a potential customer. Just like an 800 toll free number and a physical address, it is one of those things that savvy shoppers look for when deciding to make a purchase.
We have also found that catalog customers are more loyal, are less likely to price compare, and spend more per order.
Catalogs kill trees
How come nobody ever cries or whines when a cornfield is harvested? That has always baffled me. Where are the corn stalk huggers? :) Fact is that trees, just like corn and soybeans, are a renewable resource. The trees that are harvested to make paper are grown on a tree farm specifically for that purpose. And don't forget, a paper catalog will biodegrade in the landfill much quicker than the PC you're sitting behind.
A successful business listens to their customers and gives them what they want when feasible to do so. If your existing customer base and potential added customer base is large enough to justify the expense of a printed catalog, then don't be afraid to try it.
Fact is that trees, just like corn and soybeans, are a renewable resource. The trees that are harvested to make paper are grown on a tree farm specifically for that purpose. And don't forget, a paper catalog will biodegrade in the landfill much quicker than the PC you're sitting behind.
Or, they're farmed in intensive monoculture plantations which replace and destroy millions of acres of natural ecosystems, and which require massive inputs from already severely limited supplies of potable/irrigable groundwater, as well as tremendous applications of petroleum-derived synthetic fetilizers, herbicides and pesticides. These chemical poisons sterilize soil, runoff into groundwater, and eat at the atmosphere. Monoculture stands of pulp trees (increasingly genetically-engineered) eat up lands desperately needed by impoverished human beings for food production, and both displace and cause extinctions of hundreds of additional species each year.
As such, trees are not a renewable resource, but rather an extractable resource. It is only a comfy, reassuring myth (and fostered by the active PR machinery and funding of these extraction industries). It is a myth at the consumer end, that such extraction is indefinitely renewable.
Paper production is energy intensive and highly polluting, using some of the most toxic substances to which humankind has ever subjected the natural world, including dioxin and other polychlorinated biphenyls as bleaching agents, cousins of such wonderful modern contrivances as DDT and Agent Orange. They bioaccumulate up the food chain.
Paper recycling is generally a politically popular myth which makes Americans feel better about their wanton, devil-may-care consumption of the earth's finite resources. The grim reality: paper recycling is not only cost-ineffective, but largely an illusion. Most paper you place in your green bin to be "recycled" is shipped overseas to be burned in Asian incinerators as fuel, and vented through unscrubbed & unregulated smokestacks.
Printing your catalog eats up another ocean of petroleum-derived inks. Then it's transported by trains, planes and automobiles to your home, then the waste bin, and then to the landfill. Guess what that requires? Oil. Guess what that causes? Global warming. Think I'm exaagerating? The paper torrent is absolutely huge. And why? To service what is essentially a 'FirstWorld' lifestyle choice, and cater a function which could worlds more efficiently be serviced via the world wide web. It's a dinosaur practice and it ought to go extinct.
Lastly, nothing breaks down in a landfill. Your banana peel could stay perfectly preserved, sealed beneath a million tons of rubbish in a perfectly anaerobic, sterile atmosphere for decades.
Recycling/reuse is an inherently reactive and wasteful solution. Reducing consumption at the source end is a pro-active solution. With only circa 15 percent of the Earth's population, Americans consume circa 70 percent of its resources.
[edited by: minnapple at 11:38 pm (utc) on Nov. 12, 2006]
[edit reason] removed latent profanity [/edit]
One other important point to consider when deciding if a printed catalog is "worth it" for your business: People like having a hard copy. They like holding it, perusing it, marking in it, and carrying it with them on a commute. They like folding down corners of pages and laying it where a spouse will find it with their selections marked. Some people even enjoy collecting them.
No matter which side of the green fence you are on, it's a fact of life that most people still enjoy having a hard copy. Think about it: How many magazines or newspapers have you heard of that have sold their printing presses?
The New York Times has a nice online presence. So does the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, USA Today and most any other such company you can think of. Yet why do they still offer a printed copy of their materials? I can assure you it's not just as a service for the Luddites. :-)
A very large percentage of people like holding a hard copy. Simple as that. From a technology standpoint, we are a long way from replacing that convenience. Gutenberg may be getting restless, but he has not yet rolled over in his grave.
Our business has a simple philosophy that has served us well with many decisions: Take the money when they are trying to give it to you. If that means we need to supplement our online material with offline material, and it is profitable to do so, then we will.
[edited by: WiseWebDude at 5:41 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2006]
We found it impossible to put out a printed catalog that was more than about 80% accurate before we even got it mailed out.
So there seem to be two kinds of businesses: those that need "necrodendritic media", and those who don't, depending on their needs, their niche, and their customers' expectations.
Kind regards,
R.
