Online catalog sales are expected to hit $11 billion this year — and surge to $84 billion annually by 2004.
These were some of the preliminary findings from the Direct Marketing Association’s annual state of the catalog industry study that DMA president and CEO H. Robert Wientzen shared with attendees at the 16th annual Catalog Conference here yesterday.
Wientzen noted that 32 weeks shy of the 21st century, there are more opportunities than ever for catalogers, but more competition than ever as well. Eighty-four percent of catalogers surveyed are now online, with 56% conducting real-time, electronic sales.
But e-commerce won’t mean the end of paper catalogs, says Wientzen, who sees the Web as complementing rather than cannibalizing the traditional catalog business. He cited Lands’ End personal model feature and Foster & Gallagher’s “Infodigger” service as two good examples.
The DMA has also recently begun research on who is not shopping direct and why. About 45% of adult Americans don’t currently shop by catalogs. “That’s 92 million people over the age of 16 who are not your customers,” Wientzen said. “I think that perhaps 50 million of these could — or should — be remote buyers.
Initial findings from the research, which began in March, found some of the barriers to shopping direct include value-conscious people who don’t like seeing catalog savings lost to what they consider excessive and arbitrary shipping and handling fees; people feeling they can’t get items direct as quickly as they’d like; and people concerned about the quality of what they receive.
The full results of this research will be presented in October at the Catalog Weekend preceding the DMA Annual Conference in Toronto.
