Most popular Insight articles of 2010 so far...

Subscribers to the free weekly CataloguesCatalogues enewsletter will no doubt be familiar with the Insight section offering strategic and tactical advice for distance sellers.

If you don't subscribe, here's a taste of what you're missing. The following are our five most-popular Insight articles since January 2010.

What we learnt from 188 pre-Mother's Day emails--if you thought that most of the email newsletters received in the days prior would contain a special Mother’s Day offer, think again.

Five questions to ask before moving to a new web platform--because choosing a web platform can be such a complicated process, here are five questions you should ask yourself before committing to a new system.

Twelve ways to reduce cart abandonment--minimising cart abandonment is an ongoing process. Online merchants need to continually review their checkout process to ensure it isn’t too complicated, too long, and that it doesn’t ask for too much unnecessary information from the customer.

Then and now: Glasses Direct--comparing and contrasting a 2010 Glasses Direct catalogue with one mailed in 2008.

The January Catalogue Log--after receiving just 62 catalogues in December, it was somewhat of a relief that volume heralding the new year was back to a more respectable 131 catalogues.

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July Catalogue Log

Sixty-four percent of all catalogues landing at Catablogue e-business HQ in July 2010 featured some sort of offer or promotion on the cover. Nearly half of all the catalogues we tracked (49.5 percent) featured a sale or discount. This is the fourth consecutive rise in catalogues touting a special-price promotion on their front cover and marks the highest percentage ever for catalogues promoting sales and discounts since we started the Catalogue Log in January 2009. Up until now, the highest percentage was 43.7 percent, recorded in August 2009.

Compare this with last year: Of those catalogues we tracked in July 2009, 30.9 percent promoted a sale or discount on the cover. However, a year ago we logged in 149 catalogues, compared with only 91 last month. That being said, 91 catalogues represents a 21 percent increase on June 2010, so volume may be picking up again as we head into the autumn/winter season. Among those promoting a sale in July 2010 were apparel catalogue Crew Clothing, gifts catalogue The Owl Barn, and watch etailer Christopher Ward. I noted that the Christopher Ward catalogue landed on my doormat on 1st July—the day its sale started. Well, you'd expect great timing from a watchmaker—nice touch!


The percentage of catalogues offering a free gift with purchase remained roughly unchanged from last month, rising a mere 0.1 percent. Among the most generous was plants and bulb specialist J Parker, which offered customers 30 mixed narcissi with any order. Plus, if customers spent more than £40, they would also receive 30 tulips.

Free delivery was marginally less popular this month, down from 14.1 percent to 12.1 percent in July. One catalogue offering free P&P was apparel catalogue Peter Hahn. Though from the unappealing message on its front cover, I doubt it wanted many people to take up the offer. In capital letters it stated: “Offer valid once per household. Minimum order value £35. No cash alternative. Until 31 January 2011.” Obviously Peter Hahn doesn’t believe in a softly, softly approach. –MT

Idea to steal--size guides

It’s not rocket science. There can’t be an apparel catalogue out there without some sort of size guide within its pages. And if there is, I’d like know how many returns it gets from customers citing sizing problems.

While most catalogues restrict the size guide to a boxed table on the last couple of pages, I liked this effort from James Inglis.

The cataloguer is a specialist seller of narrow-fitting shoes. Because of its niche, getting the fit right is presumably one of its USPs. Its size guide, therefore, is an A4 piece of thin card. Along the left-hand side is a ruler that doubles as a tape measure. On the right-hand side there’s a foot chart—customers place the chart on a “suitably thick book” and position their foot on the page to measure where it reaches and determine their shoe size.

There’s a very easy to follow, step-by-step guide to finding the right size. There’s even a telephone number to call if customers come across any stumbling blocks. Once armed with their shoe size, width and in-step, customers then head online to enter their measurements and work out their “personal fitting profile” as well as receive recommendations on brand and style that would be best suit. One small snag in an otherwise excellent idea; the website is under construction so I couldn’t quite put it all to the test. In theory, James Inglis is definitely taking a step in the right direction (…sorry)—MT

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The same but different

Last Thursday, I received two emails from Shop Direct Group, the parent company of Empire Stores and Littlewoods. The emails had an almost identical subject line: “NEWSFLASH! £15 off your first order + new arrivals”. The only difference was that Littlewoods called its new arrivals “hot”.

Recycling the headline is rather lazy from Shop Direct, which surely could have come up with two separate subject lines (unless all its brands went with this offensive to see which of them had the biggest response). What’s more, Empire Stores had tried the previous week to tempt us with “£15 off your first order + our new season collection”, further showing a relaxed attitude to email-subject-line brainstorming.

Back to the emails at hand though—what, aside from the subject line, do these emails have in common?

Where’s the deal?
Both emails dive straight in, displaying the offer above the fold. In a move I presume saves on back-end administration, both brands use the same offer code. I would have thought a slightly different code for each brand would better aid tracking—especially as codes so quickly end up online on websites like myvouchercodes.co.uk where they are used by non-email recipients and lose all connection to the original marketing channel.

The emails then lead into the second part of the subject line: the new collections. However, where Littlewoods (below) displays a selection of new arrivals, Empire Stores (above) devotes the space to a message that harks back to its agency catalogue days and reiterates its “buy now, pay later” terms. The Littlewoods’ range is also more expensive—a Diesel dress for £170, a South sequin jacket for £69. The most expensive item in the Empire Stores email is a jacket that costs £79.

Twiggy vs Coleen
There is a clear age divide in these emails too. Empire Stores is obviously targeting a more mature market—for a start, the outfits promoted are not as figure-hugging or skimpy as the Littlewoods new arrivals. Second, Empire Stores is using 60s model Twiggy as its face, compared with Littlewoods’ use of top WAG Colleen Rooney as its “style editor”. Another indication that Empire Stores is targeting an older demographic is the reinforcement that larger sizes are available and the copy’s emphasis on comfort, rather than trendiness.

In the jeans
Both emails also feature a Denim Store section. In the Littlewoods email, the item is illustrated by a graphic—no product pictures—and the copy: “Women’s Jeans 100s of styles from classic to big brands, from all the latest fits: skinny, bootcut and more”. The Empire Stores email has an expanded Denim Store section that features three pairs of jeans next to their price per week: “So Fabulous Distresses Tapered Jeans £30 or £1.50 per week.” The main copy for the Denim Store also highlights “great value” and the availability of plus-sizes.

Despite these emails having twin subject lines and a similar layout, Shop Direct has set out clear brand guidelines, based on age, size and financial status. We previously blogged about Shop Direct supporting two separate, but nearly identical, brands. It seems that this time round it’s had a rethink and set its brands apart.--MT

As an aside, I noticed a technical difference too. Littlewoods had a "click here to view the email in a browser" link, whereas Empire Stores didn't. The reason why is something I cannot work out.

Sorry isn’t always the hardest word

During the past few months or so, I’ve noticed I’ve been receiving more and more “Sorry” emails.

Most of these emails are covering up an error, like when Pet Supermarket put the wrong expiry date on a coupon—subject line “Appologies [sic] from Pet-Supermarket‏”. Some are to inform me that a sale has been delayed, as in the case of fashion etailer Oli, which sent me a serious looking plain-text email with the subject line “Sale delayed! We're really sorry‏”. Recently I received a rather baffling email from Roman Originals titled “Our Mistake, Your Reward”. There was apparently an “inconvenience” on its website the day before the email, but as I hadn’t tried to access the site, I don’t know what the issue was.

So when this came in from upmarket fragrance purveyor Penhaligon’s, I braced myself for yet another email excusing a snafu. But what I got was a twist on the sorry email—I got sorry as a marketing opportunity.

Titled “We're sorry - here's a little something to make up for it!”, the basic premise was that as Penhaligon’s doesn’t have anything in particular to shift, it’s decided to give customers 25 percent off everything in its range.

It’s win-win—for the consumer, he gets to choose any item rather than purchase a fragrance from the clearance section. And 25 percent is a hefty discount, after all. For Penhaligon’s, if this was a genuine reason, it shows that its forecasting is on the money and that it doesn’t have a lot of overstock. If it’s just another marketing ploy—a sale by any other name is still a sale, right?--MT

June Catalogue Log

Catalogue volume continued to decline in June. We received and logged just 75 catalogues in June 2010, compared with 129 this time last year. However, of those 75 catalogues, 60 percent carried some sort of special offer—including sales or discounts, free delivery or a free gift.

Breaking the data down further, the most popular offer was a sale or discount, offered by 40 percent of the catalogue covers we tracked. On the other hand, just 11 catalogues promised free delivery. That’s down appreciably from 24.1 percent of the May 2010 catalogues. The percentage of cataloguers offering a free gift was also significantly lower than last month—down from 20.5 percent to just 12 percent.

Among the offers we received was this from furniture retailer Barker and Stonehouse. Its 16-page summer sale catalogue was mailed with 10 vouchers worth £25 each. Customers were allowed to use one voucher per £500 they spent at the store or online.

As well as giving new customers 25 percent off “everything”, the Gray & Osbourn deal also included free P&P. The winner, though, in what could be the most free gifts ever promoted on a front cover, has to be Healthy Living Direct. Its catalogue promised free clip-on crystal earrings with any order of any amount, as well as two “surprise” free gifts.

Of the catalogues that didn’t promote a special offer, I liked this from shoe retailer Office. The magazine-format catalogue was inserted into Heat magazine and was themed around festivals—one of its main cover lines was a competition to win tickets to the Isle of Wight Festival. In true magalogue style, there’s a mix of editorial features alongside product—for example, the Festival lowdown lists all major festivals in the UK and abroad and the Field Day and Carry on Camping features spotlight products that will help you survive the festival season. Office has also cleverly formatted its shoe-related features. It has some great ideas to steal—from including a Staff Style section looking at what is worn around the Office office, to spreads that won’t look out of place in women’s fashion magazines.--MT