Why Paper Catalogs Still Matter

This past Friday (October 6) Retail Dive (Washington, D.C., USA) highlighted the advantages of classic paper catalogs (such as the famous Sears catalog that many believe has or is being replaced / erased by Amazon and other online retailers and resellers).

The article explained that for many pure play retailers, paper / hard copy catalogs remain an essential way to reach customers, both prospective — as many catalogers sell their customer lists to peers — and loyal. Anna Vichitcholchai, a Silicon Valley-based consultant with RetailNext, described catalogs as the "first omnichannel" medium for retailers to master.

One of the catalog’s main advantages is also one of its most elemental qualities: It lands directly in a customer’s hands. Even if it’s walked directly from mailbox to trash can, it still offers more time than marketers and creative staff spend with customers through direct emails, which can be deleted sight unseen.

Pictured above: Currently, paper-based catalogs being mailed amount to around 2/3rds of the total mailed in the year 2001. There is no doubt that there has been approx. a 33% drop in catalog mailings, but this is despite 15 years of "digital conversion" and a deep recession where mailing trajectories suggested the paper catalog would possibly go extinct as a result of the changing economy emerging from the 2007-2011 recession years. However, in the last half decade, the paper catalog mailing industry has surprisingly stabilized despite heavy digitization efforts early in the current decade, and the efforts of anti-paper campaigns. Mailing volume actually remained steady from 2012 through the beginning of 2014. Is there a reason the paper catalog endures?

The catalog can be touched, skimmed with minimal effort or eye strain and, perhaps most importantly, can be attractive in a way digital images aren't. Even younger consumers notice. Millennials, for example, are only 15% likely to ignore direct mail, compared to 50% who say they ignore digital ads, according to a report from the U.S. Postal Service, which noted results from an experiment showing that physical marketing "triggered activity in a part of the brain that corresponds with value and desirability.