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Print catalogs still have a central place in the marketing mix — at least according to a recent consumer survey by Millard Group Inc.
Among those polled, 80% said receiving a print catalog prompted them to shop online, and 65% reported having the book with them as a reference tool when they made their Web purchase, said Millard Group's president Ben Perez.
The Web outranked both paper catalogs and retail when it came to meeting customer expectations. But online shopping sites fared poorly when it came to copy: Only 43% of respondents said the site they shopped from accurately described its products, down from 52% last year. Fifty-four percent ranked the site they had purchased from as a good source of products, compared with 51% last year. And most distressingly, only 37% said the site offered a good value for the money spent, a drop from last year's 40%.
“These are not good scores, and with all the options shoppers have, we need to make sure we don't drive them away,” said Perez, speaking at the Direct Marketing Association's Catalog-on-the-Road Day in Cambridge, MA. “There's a limit to what consumers will spend.”
A chief concern to catalogers is the proliferation of “big box” retailers like Wal-Mart, which not only have significant brick-and-mortar presences but formidable Web sites.
“The customer is in charge more than ever,” he said.
Perez also predicted that catalog mail volume would grow from 7% to approximately 15% this year.
To conduct the post-holiday satisfaction study, Millard polled online shoppers of 48 different catalogs.
About 450,000 e-mails were sent out, and close to 66,000 responses were received.
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