The other side of the coin is looking at how response rates will rebound. Will they rebound to the levels of two years ago? Or will the rebound be a more modest recovery, where response will be a slight improvement over the response rates in the darkest days of the recession?
* Catalogers have seen some cost relief in the decline in paper and printing prices. The first postage “sale” in history is about to begin. Paper prices ratcheted down again, and printing prices also are being selectively cut as printers have to match competitive bids and cut price to keep business.
* Catalogers also reacted positively to news of the USPS' “summer sale.” While not perfect — many smaller-volume-mailing catalogers don't qualify — the sale is a first step in the post office recognizing that lower prices might mean greater volume and actually increased profitability.
* Arandell rolled out a prospecting catalog with page counts aimed at maximizing the cost efficiency of catalogs, letting catalogers prospect at a whole new level. Putting out a high-quality, low-cost prospecting catalog allows mailers to continue to reach out to new customers profitably. Working on minimizing the “in-the-mail” costs of catalogs also recognizes that Web-savvy customers may not need as many pages of merchandise to trigger Web traffic.
* Promotions were a bigger part of every catalog's arsenal. Marketers are concerned about the need to use promotions to achieve short-term sales, and the long-term effect it will have on teaching consumers to just wait for the next promotion. Sure, promotions work, but will people ever go back to buying at full retail?
I left the ACCM encouraged and hopeful that catalogers and the vendors serving them are coming up with a full range of solutions to the problems of trying to sell and survive in such uncertain economic times.
Jim Coogan is president of Catalog Marketing Economics, a Santa Fe, N.M.-based consulting firm focused on catalog circulation planning. You can reach him at (505) 986-9902 or jcoogan@earthlink.net.
