Retailers Finding New Touch Points With Digital Catalogs

It is widely accepted that one of the keys to success is the ability to adapt. The retail industry, customarily driven by brick and mortar stores and weighty catalog mailings, has been profoundly affected by present-day circumstances. The current harsh economic climate coupled with the rampant growth of online shopping and social media has caused many companies to take a step back to reevaluate their strategies. The retailers that have done the best jobs to adapt and start using these “threats” to find new marketing opportunities are starting to reap the benefits of their versatility through increased revenues.

The catalog has been the flagship of the retail industry for decades. Even with the recent increased shipping costs and decreased sales, it’s still hard to turn a blind eye to its proven track record and ongoing performance. Data shows that on average, catalogs can still generate $7 in sales for every dollar it takes to have them published and mailed. And how do you give a value to the catalog’s unmatched ability to show off a retailer’s well polished image? For most retailers it also goes unequalled in its skill of generating new business. It would be a drastic lapse in judgment to simply abandon it in an effort to cut costs.

Unwilling to sacrifice reach or branding, the adaptive retailers have been finding that the solution to reducing these expenses doesn’t have to be touching fewer customers, but instead changing how they touch customers. Besides the traditional means - decreasing circulation, trimming the size of catalogs and using less expensive paper - a company can take a portion of their savings to reinvest into Internet marketing. In the retail industry, online marketing and digital catalogs are growing in popularity and are much less expensive alternatives when compared to the traditional print forms. Statistics show that for every dollar a retailer spends doing online marketing they have a $45 return.

So in situations where it may be adapt or perish, those who allow themselves to evolve to the changing circumstances will grow stronger. The retailers who are quick on their feet and can find that harmonization between the tangible and digital can not only survive but thrive in a desert-like economy.