A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

The number of catalogs available online increased from 7,440 to 8,903 in the past year, according to the 2006 edition of The National Directory of Catalogs, which was released last week. 78% of the 11,438 catalogs in the directory are available online, up from 60% last year. Other data revealed by the directory:

- 1,320 catalogs are only available online, up from 772 last year.

In the past 10 years, the strongest growing categories were Automotive, Education, and Apparel and Accessories. In that time:

- The Automotive category has grown 101%

- The Education category has grown 54%

- The Apparel and Accessories category has grown 11%

This verifies what we’ve been hearing for the past two years, that print and web really work hand-in-hand to let the customer choose how they look for and make their purchases. Today’s customers have become much more sophisticated than in the recent past, and they expect choices.

The next step is to make those online catalogs a richer experience. Rather than simply uploading the static pages and giving customers exactly what they have in the printed catalog, we need to give them something extra. More information, more views of the product...a reason to shop the online catalog.