August Catalogue Log

Last year, the fact that we received just 71 catalogues in August seemed unusual to us. But this year, receiving just 61 catalogues in August came as no surprise. We have been tracking a steady decline in catalogue volume during the last few months—the only anomaly being July, when sale activity boosted the number of catalogues to land on the Catalogue Log desk.

Comparing the catalogues received in August 2009 with those logged in August 2010, some titles that appear in both columns, such as Books Direct, House of Bruar and Scotts of Stow. There also seemed to be an almost equal number of new names this year to compensate for lists we have been dropped from. This further cements the theory that cataloguers are mailing smarter, removing unprofitable names from their files.

Cataloguers are also becoming smarter with their covers. We have been tracking how many catalogues highlight a sale or discount, free shipping, or a free gift on their covers since January 2009 and have noted an increasing trend of using the cover to promote some sort of offer. A staggering 65.6 percent of all the catalogues we received in August featured some sort of offer on the front cover—in July that figure was 64 percent and in June it was 60 percent. Among the minority of catalogues without a special offer were Brora, the Dolls House Emporium, and Lakeland.


The most popular offer in August was a sale or discount, promoted on 41 percent of the catalogue covers we logged. This is appreciably lower than July’s record high of 49.5 percent. Gaining favour with cataloguers in August was free delivery—the number of catalogues touting free shipping almost doubled from 12.1 percent in July to 23 percent in August. Catalogues offering free delivery included Bon Prix, Joules and Boden, which repeated its Sunday Times offer of last year—a 15 percent discount, free delivery, and free returns. We thought it made Boden look needy last year, but it obviously works or Boden wouldn’t have used it again.

The number of catalogues offering a free gift with purchase was 11.5 percent, down from 12.1 percent in July and from 14.1 percent in August 2009. Free gifts were mainly promoted by the b-to-b catalogues in the pack including Viking Direct and Neat Ideas.

Our favourite offer of the month is from gardening catalogue Sarah Raven’s Kitchen & Garden. Among the messages on the cover was this: “Offers What’s yours? See page 49”. I thought it was a fun way to encourage customers to flick through the catalogue. It also had a sense of personalisation—did my catalogue have a different offer to my friend or neighbour’s? I’d like to think there was some sort of segmentation that went into deciding which offer to send to which tranche of the database. Let's put it to the test, I got 15 percent off. What did you get?--MT

March Catalogue Log

As predicted in last month’s Catalogue Log, the number of catalogues promoting discounts and sale prices on their covers fell, whilst the number offering free delivery rose. What we didn’t predict however, was that the number of catalogues offering free shipping would be the highest figure we’ve recorded since we first began compiling the log.

In March, we received a total of 141 catalogues. Of those, 31.9 percent offered a discount, compared with 38.2 percent in February. And although the increase in catalogues offering free delivery was up just 0.7 percent to 22 percent, it’s a record-breaking figure. Until now, the highest percentage of catalogues offering free delivery was 21.7 percent, a figure we noted in our October Catalogue Log at the height of the Christmas mailing season.

One reason for the increased popularity of free p&p last month is, we assume, to soften the blow of full-price, new-season goods. What’s more, of the 31 catalogues offering free delivery, 19, or 61.3 percent of them, offered it unconditionally to further coax shoppers to open their wallets. Overall, it was less surprising the at the most aggressively promotional catalogues were mailed by business-to-business merchants.

Stationery supplies marketer Viking sent us a 12-page A4 catalogue called Switch & Save. It promised that if we chose to switch from our current stationery supplier to Viking, we’d be making a saving by beating competitors’ prices. Considering we already have an account with Viking (amongst others), I am surprised this landed in our office. Another business catalogue making a similarly bold claim is promotional products cataloguer 4imprint, which says it is “100% behind our 100% satisfaction guarantee”. As part of that guarantee it is offering double the difference if customers find a lower price elsewhere. Further, if the order is not delivered on time, the entire order is free.

Just 14.9 percent of the catalogues we received in March promoted a free gift with purchase. This is down from 16.9 percent in February and 15.7 percent in March last year. RNLI was one of the consumer catalogues offering a gift. It was good to see the RNLI catalogue back after its hiatus. Last year RNLI didn’t print a spring edition following problems at its former fulfilment house, Capita Fulfilment Services. This year, see the charity’s trading arm returned with a new website and new fulfilment house, Prism DM.

Finally, a note on a back cover we liked. The spring summer edition of the Outdoor & Country catalogue features a very colourful and eye-catching front cover, but as we all know, a catalogue is just as likely to be read from back to front. The catalogue doesn’t shout about an offer or spotlight a bestselling product, instead it carries a rather gentle reminder: “Did you see the essential travel luggage pages…and the funky festival wellies?” The question teases each time you look at the back cover. And even if you had seen the wellies first time round, now you’re thinking, “they’re worth another look, surely…”--MT

The October Catalogue Log

St Nick lugging a bag brimming with toys has become a near-universal symbol of Christmas. For the weeks leading up to the holiday, you could substitute a postie for Santa, and a mailbag bulging with catalogues for the sack of toys.

In October alone, Catalogue e-business logged in 184 catalogues. That’s second in volume only to September, when we tallied 212 catalogues. And one could argue that we would have received even more catalogues last month were it not for the intermittent CWU/Royal Mail strikes.

Not only was our mailbox full of catalogues, but the catalogues were full of promotions. The number of catalogues that featured sales or discounts on their covers was the same that offered no special promotions at all: 76, or 41.3 percent. Only August and May had a higher percentage of sales promotions, at 43.7 percent and 42.6 percent respectively. The percentage of catalogues offering free delivery reached a year high of 21.7 percent. The percentage of catalogues offering a gift with purchase, meanwhile, was 16.8 percent, behind only June (17.8 percent) and August (16.9 percent).

Several of the cataloguers committed the marketing equivalent of hiding their light under a bushel: not promoting significant offers on the cover. Fashion mailer Carr & Westley, for instance, tells readers, “No extra charge for post and packing within the UK”—not on the front or back cover but on the inside front cover. Tools cataloguer/retailer Screwfix offers free delivery on orders of more than £50, though again you’d have to open the catalogue and scan the inside front cover to learn that fact. I don’t understand why you’d offer a buying inducement like free P&P without promoting it. Are the companies secretly hoping no-one will take them up on the offer? The only logical explanation I can come up with is that they’re testing the effectiveness of free P&P, though I didn’t notice any mechanisms in place to help in tracking such a test. If anyone can illuminate me, please do.

Among a few notable catalogues we received: Food gifts mailer Virginia Hayward offered 12.5 percent off its Christmas hampers. I assume that percentage of discount was selected to tie in with the fact that Virginia Hayward is celebrating its 25th anniversary, though maybe the company settled on that number simply because it’s more attention-getting than, say, 10 percent off. Viking Direct sent the most distinct editions of any cataloguer in October: eight, including the 484-page Office Buyers Directory, a 72-page November Sale edition, and a 56-page Pricebuster Sale edition.

Several of the October catalogues made a point of alerting shoppers of their cut-off ordering dates for Christmas delivery, something we’ll no doubt see more of among November’s crop of mailpieces. Silk-flowers cataloguer Bloom will take orders until 18th December for standard Christmas delivery and 21st December for expedited delivery. Toys cataloguer/retailer Early Learning Centre lists 20th December as its deadline. The last order date for Christmas delivery at Rainbow Flowers & Gifts is 18th December. So far CJ Wildlife offers the latest deadline: 21st December for standard delivery to mainland UK.

The Executive Christmas Cards and Promotional Calendars catalogue that raises funds for the RNLI has the dubious distinction of the most incomprehensible promotion, involving a sister company of Kingsmead Publications, which handles the catalogue operations for the RNLI. I think it’s simply a 50 percent discount on stationery from Simply Letterheads, good from 13th December through March, but it’s wrapped in some “clever” verbiage about how taking advantage of the discount enables you to in effect spend nothing on Christmas cards next year, because the money you saved on the stationery will balance out the money you spend. Why not just state, “When you buy cards from this catalogue you can get a whopping 50 percent off your stationery at Simply Letterheads”? That seems like a strong enough proposition in and of itself, and as Lisa Simpson taught me, simplest is best.--SC

The good, the bad, and the huh?

A few comments on catalogues and emails that arrived at Catalogue e-business HQ this week.

First, the good: “Do we look good naked?” retail supplies cataloguer Morplan asks on the inside front cover of its October issue. It had mailed the catalogue without a plastic wrap, you see. “Did your copy arrive in good condition or should we stay covered up” the note continues. “Please let us know at naked@morplan.com.” I like this for two reasons: 1) Mailing without a polybag is more environmentally friendly, and 2) Morplan is asking for customers’ feedback on the move. Much as I loathe when catalogues come entombed in plastic (it’s just more flotsam to rip open and discard), I can appreciate that not everyone agrees with me. By asking its clients for feedback, Morplan shows that it values their input and, by extension, their custom.

Next, the bad: “We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated The Wanderers (Bloomsbury Classic Reads) by Richard Price have also purchased Rays by Richard Price,” begins an email from Amazon.co.uk. The message includes a link to Rays, which is scheduled to be released next week, and suggests I preorder a copy. Now, if Rays has not yet been published, how could people have already bought it? And more to the point, the Richard Price who wrote The Wanderers, a gritty novel (and one that I gave four stars, by the way), is not the same Richard Price who wrote Rays, a book of poetry described as “a wry and tender lover’s gift”. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of readers of Richard Price I and Richard Price II, the circles probably wouldn’t even touch, let alone overlap. I’d complained about Amazon’s dodgy product recommendations before; this seems to confirm that while it owns leagues of customer and product data, Amazon doesn’t really know what all the info means.

And now, the huh?: A 20-page Christmas edition of the Viking Direct catalogue includes two pages of Wii games, two pages of additional games, a page of kiddie electronics, and a page of DVDs. Viking, of course, is a direct seller of office supplies. Is the company really suggesting that office managers should stock up on boxed sets of Shameless DVDs and Hannah Montana karaoke systems in addition to wall planners and toner cartridges?--SC

The July Catalogue Log

For the third consecutive month, the percentage of catalogues promoting sales and discounts continued to decline, according to the Catalogue e-business Catalogue Log.

In July we logged in 149 catalogues. Of those, 46, or 30.9 percent, touted a sale or discount on their front cover. That’s down from 34.1 percent of the catalogues tallied in June and a whopping 42.6 percent of those logged in May.

At 16.1 percent, the percentage promoting free postage and packing was down somewhat from June’s 17.8 percent but still up significantly on May’s 11 percent. The percentage of catalogues offering a gift with purchase, meanwhile, soared, from 8.5 percent in June to 15.4 percent in July. Among the freebies in July: a Snap N Slice kitchen tool that sells for £29.99 free with orders of more than £60 from homewares merchant JML; a free “deluxe wicker picnic basket” with orders of more than £39 from office supplies mailer Neat Ideas; and a free DVD player for new customers with orders of more than £30 from another office products mailer, Viking Direct.

Viking and Neat Ideas were among the catalogues with the busiest covers in terms of offers—not surprising given how competitive and price-conscious the office supplies sector is. For instance, in addition to the free DVD player, the Viking catalogue cited above promised “fast free delivery” and two Nectar points for every £1 spent. Another b-to-b catalogue, packaging materials merchant Rajapack, offered on its front cover discounts of up to 35 percent PLUS a free barbecue apron set with purchase PLUS free next-day delivery.

On the b-to-c front, home goods and apparel mailer Clifford James gave away a “solar light twinpack worth £14.99” plus promoted a buy-one-get-one-free deal on travel bags and a five-piece knife set “for just £24.99”. Not to be outdone, Home Essentials promised a free gift with order, the ability to “spread the cost with your personal account”, and a half-price quilt and throw set.

The percentage of catalogues that did not include any special offers on the front cover was down slightly from June: 43.6 percent versus 46.5 percent. Which is not to say that these catalogues didn’t put their covers to work. Homecraft’s Chester-care book, which sells living aids for the elderly and infirm, pointed out that the current edition included more than 80 new products. Housewares cataloguer/retailer Lakeland promised “over 530 exciting ideas for your home”. Direct Golf reminded customers that if they ordered by 2pm they could receive their goods the next day, while Teknomek, a provider of stainless-steel equipment, let readers know that it could create merchandise to customers’ specs.

A cover line on the Jigsaw IT catalogue is as informative but less enticing than the ones above: “Due to current fluctuations in international exchange rates prices printed may be incorrect. For our latest updated prices please see jigsaw24.com”. Granted, that’s important information. But by putting it on the front cover, Jigsaw seems to be saying, “Before you open this catalogue, bear in mind that some items will cost more than the prices listed here. Are you really sure you even want to open this catalogue and start shopping?”--SC