Why are we still getting catalogs in the mail?

CURRENTS: "In Digital Era, Marketers Still Prefer a Paper Trail: Glossy Printed Catalogs, Low on Recycled Content and Often Discarded by Consumers, Continue to Deliver for Retailers," by Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 16 October 2009.

All our catalogs go straight in the recycling bag for delivering to our kids' school. We order stuff from these very same vendors, but exclusively over the Web.

And yet they keep sending us this huge flow, which almost always constitutes about 90% of our mail.

Comments

[Fazal Majid]

Try www.catalogchoice.org

[Dan Hare]

I used to be in the mail order biz. Its all about numbers and response from the paper version of the catalog.

It's still profitable. They would do well to merge users like us who prefer ONLINE ordering.

[Ted O'Connor]

My wife would not go to the mailbox if it were not for catalogues. Catalogues, bills and flyers from grocery stores are all we get. Wait, I take that back...my insurance guy sends me a birthday card.

[David Sutton]

I can not actually remember the last time I got mail that wasn't a bill or a catalogue.

As much as I love the interweb I do miss mail sometimes.