Are Catalogs Made from Dead Trees Rising from the Ashes of Retail?
January 6, 2020
DarkCyber spotted an interesting write up about dead trees. The article is about printed catalogs. Paper. You remember the stuff, don’t you? “Catalog Retailers See Reason for Optimism after Declines” contains a somewhat surprising statement; to wit:
New companies are mailing catalogs. And even died-in-the-wool online retailers like Amazon and Bonobos are getting into the act. “They’re tapping out on what they’re able to do digitally,” said Tim Curtis, president of CohereOne, a direct marketing agency in California. “They’ve got to find some new way to drive traffic to their websites.”
Does this assertion translate into a certain exhaustion of the possibilities of online advertising. Maybe pop up or Google fatigue is affecting people looking for information.
Consider online information services. I encountered a situation with the Daily Mail, a British newspaper. The site would not display. There were ads loading, questions to answer, and pop ups to dismiss. I solved the problem by navigating to another site. Too much hassle.
A paper catalog can be viewed and maybe used to buy something without the annoyance.
“Driving traffic to a Web site” may be less important than a catalog’s ability to deliver information without digital annoyances, creepy tracking cookies, and ads for products one just purchased.
Stephen E Arnold, January 6, 2020
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