Print catalogs still first, for now
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 5/1/1998
Indianapolis, Ind.--Distributors consider print catalogs as tools chiefly to increase sales, despite the growing use of online options and CD-ROMs.According to a survey conducted by print and online catalog publisher Howard W. Sams, most of 763 distributors experienced a sales increase in the first year of a catalog publication. Fifty-two percent of those reporting revenue gains said the increases reached up to 10 percent, while nearly one-third measured sales gains of between 11 and 20 percent.
Print catalogs remain the preference of three-quarters of the respondents, but electronic competition is growing quickly. Nearly one in five companies publish online catalogs or on CD-ROM, a marked increase from a few years ago.
On a one-to-10 scale of how important catalogs are to their business, 40 percent of distributors rate catalogs as a "7" or above. Only 10 percent rate catalogs as unimportant at "4" or less.
More companies also say they offer catalogs to service existing customers rather than to find new ones. And while distributors continue to publish general line catalogs most frequently, one in five issue niche catalogs to target products for specific customer needs.
"We've noticed catalog marketing trends and technologies undergoing change like never before," says Sherry Rose, marketing director for Howard Sams. "At least one forecast for business-to-business catalog growth predicts that catalog use may double by the year 2002."
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