There are many things where perception does not match up with reality. The creation, publication, distribution and use of catalogs is one of those situations. For quite a while now the notion that it is environmentally good for the planet to avoid using paper and people are going digital anyway has prevailed. That’s the perception. The reality is something else.
Catalogs did see a decline before and during the recession from purely economic pressure. Lands End cut back on catalogs and saw a $100 million decline in sales. IKEA however increased its catalog use and saw a 30 percent increase in business. There are many similar instances that demonstrate the worth of catalogs. A major brick-and-mortar high-end department store reported that it has a “significant” spike in business in their stores whenever they mail out a new catalog.
Harvard Business Review found that multi-channel marketing including catalogs brings four times as much business as single focused campaigns. Nordstrom found that 20 percent of new customers placed online orders after getting a printed catalog.
But what about the environmental claims? Everyone wants to save the trees! But nobody wants to save the trees more than the lumber and paper industries. They have the best forest management in the history of the world. In Europe 33 percent more new trees are added to the forests than are harvested. In the U.S. there is 30 percent more forest today than in 1950. In fact, if the forest clearing that took place in the 1880s is eliminated, the U.S. forest has covered between 700 and 800 million acres ever since. That even with all the construction and use of printed materials for 140 years forest coverage has remained constant.
One reason is that new paper is only one third new trees! The other two thirds come from recycled paper and wood scrap from other industries. Paper makes up one half of all recycling in the U.S. by weight. About 65 percent of paper is recycled according to the U.S. EPA. That saves more than 90 million cubic yards of landfill space. Paper is a renewable and recyclable crop that does not adversely impact the environment.
So why are many suppliers in the promotional advertising/specialty marketing industry eliminating their catalogs? Some might be buying into the perception that everyone is going digital, but it appears that the prevailing interest is in the monetary savings. Not the perceived environmental benefit. They may have convinced themselves that everyone is going digital to support their decision as well. But the facts in the general marketplace show that catalogs have significant and growing influence.
In our industry we have around 3,700 suppliers. Most distributors will have core group of suppliers they deal with very regularly and a large number that might produce only a few orders each year. From my point of perspective (managing supplier relationships for a top 25 distributor) I do not see a single supplier without a printed catalog in our top 50 supplier list!
From a practical standpoint a physical, printed catalog will get reviewed by a distributor, even if only thumbed through, but the scope of the line will be seen and usually remembered. The catalog then serves as a convenient resource and more importantly a sales tool that can’t be matched by a tablet or smartphone! When a customer is handed a catalog to review a proposed item for their promotion, the confidence level of dealing with the distributor goes up, as does the perceived value of the merchandise.
Using printed catalogs helps to limit the intrusion of competitors. Sending a customer to review a supplier’s website is a near guarantee that competitive distributor ads will be seen.
John Wanamaker (1838–1922) who operated a major department store chain that later became part of Macy’s said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” I have a feeling that suppliers that eliminate their printed catalogs will find out!
Suppliers please keep in mind something I write about often, distributors are not your customers! We share a common customer. We don’t buy your products, we sell them. You don’t get a PO from us until we have sold your products to someone else. So if you take sales tools away from us and make it tougher to do our part of the transaction, we might simply find a supplier that still supports the sales activities with tools we want.
I do realize that there are many people actively selling in this great business that hate printed catalogs. They may also hate client personal contact, too, but that is for another article. Fortunately every supplier I know of also has a digital catalog as well. That way you cover the entire landscape.
So let’s not bury catalogs just yet. If the day ever comes that they are obsolete, still don’t bury them – recycle!
Gregg Emmer is chief marketing officer and vice president at Kaeser & Blair, Inc. He has more than 40 years experience in marketing and the promotional specialty advertising industry. His outside consultancy provides marketing, public relations and business planning consulting to a wide range of other businesses and has been a useful knowledge base for K&B Dealers. Contact Gregg at gemmer@kaeser-blair.com.