Print Catalogs Are A Thing Again?!

[gdave]

Sooo…today, in my mailbox, was a catalog. An honest-to-Gutenberg printed catalog. A printed, Christmas catalog. A printed, Christmas, toy catalog. A printed, Christmas, toy catalog, from Amazon dot com.

What the what?

Is this a nostalgia thing? Is Amazon counting on people old enough to remember the Sears Wish Book but young enough to have young kids to…get their kids to leaf through a dead-tree catalog for their Christmas wishes?

Or maybe a hipster retro-cool thing?

Or is it just that Amazon has a squinjillion dollars and nothing better to do, so what the heck, why not mass mail unsolicited toy catalogs?

[Procrustus]

@gdave

Sooo…today, in my mailbox, was a catalog. An honest-to-Gutenberg printed catalog. A printed, Christmas catalog. A printed, Christmas, toy catalog. A printed, Christmas, toy catalog, from Amazon dot com .

We get tons (probably literally) of paper printed catalogs in the mail all the time. Every damn day.

[Kimstu]

They do it because it makes money.

Why Catalogs Are Making a Comeback

Despite two decades of email and social media marketing, and the digitization of the consumer experience, catalog mailings have been steadily increasing since 2015. What’s more is that consumers are surprisingly enthusiastic about receiving them – response rates from catalogs have increased by 170% from 2004 to 2018. The effects are not just confined to digital laggards who do not go online – in fact, there’s evidence that Millennials are particularly interested in catalogs they receive in the mail. […]

Why catalogs still work

When we marry our research above with a review of retail trends and consumer psychology, we see how catalogs stand apart from the increasingly cluttered digital inboxes and social media feeds. As physical products, they can linger in consumers’ houses long after emails are deleted, which increases top-of-mind awareness among consumers.

But their real power is how—for certain products—they increase the vividness of a product by enhancing consumer’s ability to visualize and imagine product usage experiences. Vividness is highly influential in consumer behavior as it can increase consumer involvement and joy in the purchasing process, ultimately influencing preferences and sales. Vividness is especially important for hedonic products and services (vs. utilitarian) that are purchased for fun, enjoyment and pleasure, and contain richer experiential aspects.

Finally, physical stores are expensive. For e-commerce retailers, especially those in hedonic categories who do not have or do not want physical stores, well-designed catalog campaigns allow them to make the product presentation more vivid, tactile, and memorable. The potential results are increased customer involvement, loyalty, and sales, all without the geographic constraints and the expenses associated with stores.

[Folly]

I went to an outdoor mall (Old Orchard north of Chicago) a couple of months ago and there was a brick and mortar Amazon store.

We’ve come full circle.

[Beckdawrek]

I get them. Multiple every month.
Some are a bit sketchy.
Many are positivly porno-graphic.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Same here. Probably everybody over a certain age gets them constantly because if they ever ordered from one company their name gets passed around. Ask your mail carrier how many catalogs they deliver every single day.

[kitap]

Swiss Colony still has catalogs. I had no idea they were still around.

[Spoons]

My bookseller has cut back from four catalogues per year to only one, but I still receive that one.

[Siam_Sam]

We routinely get the print catalog for a local T-shirt brand called Crazy Shirts. Must be a new one every month or two. Quality stuff, they have shops all over the state but especially here in Waikiki.

[digs]

@Procrustus

We get tons (probably literally) of paper printed catalogs in the mail all the time. Every damn day.

I’m sure you could cancel (maybe online?).

I’ve been taking in a neighbor’s mail and she gets well over a dozen catalogs a week. But she lives alone, and doesn’t have a computer, so I’ll bet she actually uses them (and they’re entertaining, too; I’ve peeked at a couple).

[alphaboi867]

They could come in handy if we have another toilet paper shortage.

[kenobi_65]

We got the Amazon toy catalog in the mail earlier this week.

We still do get print catalogs semi-regularly. We buy clothing from Lands End frequently enough that they send us catalogs a couple of times a month, and my wife gets mailed the Pyramid Collection (a.k.a., the Stevie Nicks Collection) catalog every month. (FWIW, she has never bought anything from them, but they have been sending catalogs to her for years.)

Until a year or two ago, we also got a print catalog from IKEA a few times a year. I don’t know if they’ve discontinued it, or if we’ve just fallen off of their mailing list.

[Gordon_Urquhart]

There’s a nonprofit organization that can help stop print catalogs being delivered to your home: catalogchoice.org. I’ve used it several times in the past few years and it seems to be pretty effective, although I think as soon as you buy something from a company whose catalog you’ve cancelled you’re right back on the mailing list.

There are also some companies that give you the opportunity to cancel their catalog delivery on their websites.

[Dewey_Finn]

@kenobi_65

Until a year or two ago, we also got a print catalog from IKEA a few times a year. I don’t know if they’ve discontinued it, or if we’ve just fallen off of their mailing list.

I believe IKEA discontinued their print catalog.

[thorny_locust]

I find it much faster and easier to read through and to find things in a print catalog than on most on-line sites.

[nearwildheaven]

Is it Daedalus? I can’t recall ever ordering anything from them, but once in a while, one will show up in my mailbox.

I get regular mailings from L. L. Bean, but I also buy a sizable percentage of my clothes from them. I’m sure they’ve sold my name and address to some other moderately high-end vendors, and I get a Harry & David catalog because my sister has ordered gifts from them for my, and our parents, several times.

[elfkin477]

@gdave

Christmas, toy catalog. A printed, Christmas, toy catalog, from Amazon dot com .

I have gotten them every year since at least 2015. Does this year’s have stickers in it too?

They apparently send them to anyone: a child hasn’t lived in this house since 2000.

[gdave]

Stickers and paper cutout figures.

[Spoons]

@nearwildheaven

Is it Daedalus?

No, it’s Bauman’s. I didn’t know about Daedulus, so I had a look. Nice selection, but they don’t ship outside the United States. Bauman’s does.

[digs]

My wife gets a few catalogs, but she actually uses them, ordering well-made, reasonable stuff.

I don’t get it, I’ve got enough stuff. The only catalog I’d be interested in getting would be the 1959 Sears catalog. It came in October, and our parents told me and my sister to look through and show them what we liked, to give them ideas for Christmas. So we spent hours and days and weeks lying on the floor saying “This! And this and this!” “No, they can’t get us too much stuff. How about this and that?”

Smart parents, they got over two months of the kids being quiet, reading a catalog.