Catalog­ue Marketing

Catalog­ue Marketing

catalogue marketing Catalogue marketing involves selling through catalogues mailed to a select list of Direct marketing

customers or made available in stores. Examples of mail­order catalogue oper­ through catalogues that

ators are Frcemans, GUS. Index, Otto Versand. La Redoute and Trois Suisses. are mailed to a select lint

Buying from a mail­order catalogue used to be popular among isolated popul­ qf customers or made

ations or less affluent, older married women. The image of catalogue marketing, available in stores.

however, has been transformed by some retailers. Consider the following example:

Trois Suisses, the French mail­order giant, has distanced itself from the old­fashioned catalogue image. One of its recent catalogues featured

nothing less than a pair of sensuous lips. Its catalogues now feature a range of products by the leading textiles designers such as Vivienne

Westwood and Elizabeth de Senneville, as well as household articles designed by Starck and Andre Ptitman. The new style is a far cry from the first catalogue sent out when.jthe company was founded in 1932. It was the first major catalogue to aim for the glossy high­fashion market when, back in 1992, it featured the American model Cindy Crawford on a catalogue cover.

Trois Suisses stresses that the traditional rural clientele is giving way to young working women who are busy and under pressure. The catalogue's up­market repositioning reflects these changes. The company's market research suggests that over a quarter of the regular clients who place orders six or more times a year are women under the age of 24; new catalogues must be a fashion and media event. Trois Suisses is described as an aggressive direct marketer, sending out more

than 8 million catalogues a year and keeping its best clients in touch with follow­up literature every two weeks, Trois Suisses also operates in Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Austria. Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. To support its up­market repositioning, the firm has streamlined

operations and improved performance (staff spend on average not more than three and a half minutes on each order). It offers a 24­hour delivery

service on most items. Sales are processed in one large three­storey depot. There is one vast room dedicated to express sales, where each regular client is allotted a location within the section earmarked for his or her town. Over a kilometre of conveyor belts carry the items round the

complex and out to the delivery vans.

Trois Suisses' recent repositioning strategy has paid off, and it has turned a lack­lustre catalogue business into a profitable venture during the 1990s. 12

Catalogues are increasingly used by store retailers, which see them as mi additional medium for cultivating sales.

Most consumers enjoy receiving catalogues and will sometimes even pay to get them. Many catalogue marketers arc now even selling their catalogues at book stores and magazine stands. Advances in technology are enabling retailers and

Forms of Direct Marketing

This aissard­­T£irming direct response ctdtaevtising

campaign nm by the Scottish Health Education Board, drew tremendous responses from smokers seeking counselling, showing vahat ciimniunicatuin can achieve when advertisers get it right.

manufacturers to experiment with multiple forms of media, such as videotapes, computer discs, (ID­ROMs and Internet catalogues. The revolution has already begun in the United States in the case of Royal Silk, a clothing company, which sells a 35­niinute video catalogue to its customers for S5.95. The tape contains a polished presentation of Royal Silk products, tells customers how to care for silk and provides ordering information. Solot'lex uses a video brochure to help sell its in­home exercise equipment. The 22­minute video shows an attractive couple demonstrating the exercises possible with the system. Solotlex claims that almost

half of those who view the video brochure later place an order via telephone, compared with only a 1(1 per cent response from those receiving regular direct

mail. 1 ­' Many business­to­business marketers also rely heavily on catalogues. Whether in the form of a simple brochure, three­ring binder or book, or encoded on a videotape or computer disc, catalogues remain one of today's indispensable

sales tools.