Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 3, 1995 TAG: 9501030004
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Then, right before your eyes, the lake recedes and the pastoral scene evolves into the L.L. Bean trademark and finally the cover of its catalog, which is chockablock with the usual panoply of chamois cloth shirts, Polartec pullovers and other such made-in-Maine coziness.
This fall, the Bean catalog went animated, by way of CD-ROM. Bean has joined 22 other retailers in peddling its wares on ``Merchant,'' one of three catalog-related CD-ROMs. The others are 2Market, a privately held company founded by America Online Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and Medior Inc.; and Shopping2000, developed by a New York-based start-up called ContentWare.
The advent of shopping via CD-ROM coincides with the 250th anniversary of the mail-order catalog, first published by Ben Franklin. Sales were projected to climb to $57.4 billion in 1994 from $53.4 billion in 1993 - and $35.7 billion in 1987.
More and more catalogs are moving online, offering wares on computer dial-up services such as CompuServe. CD-ROM catalogs are a variation on the theme, and a fast-growing one, with 10 million computers with CD-ROM drives expected to be in U.S. homes and businesses by the end of 1994.
Most of the Shopping2000 catalogs also are available on the Internet.
None of this is to say that print catalogs will become obsolete. ``We're fairly convinced there will be a steady audience of people who like to have something they can pick up,'' said Bean spokeswoman Catharine Hartnett.
Distributed by Magellan Systems of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Merchant is touted as a crowd-free ``virtual mall, where your feet never get tired.''
Actually, it's more like a virtual mailbox crammed with 23 catalogs, none of which you're likely to throw away. Besides Bean, Merchant features such mail-order heavyweights as Spiegel, J.C. Penney and Service Merchandise, with some of the Spiegel models rotating right there on screen.
With the click of a mouse, shoppers also can change colors at will. And they can specify a given item, such as ``women's shoes, red,'' and the CD-ROM will list what's available. Or if they'd like a preview of a National Wildlife Federation video about bears, for example, the CD-ROM will oblige with a video or audio snippet.
``The big question is, will people shop from them?'' says Shopping2000 President Ken Koppel. All CD-ROMs have a large entertainment component; ``we have to seduce people into spending time with them.''
Retailers paid Magellan an average of $20,000 to have their catalogs sent, via Merchant, to 200,000 potential customers just before Thanksgiving. That makes it too soon to gauge response, says Bean's Hartnett.
``We're in a testing phase,'' she said. ``The advantage we see to a CD-ROM is the graphic capability, but it's not interactive. The advantage to online is the interactive capability, but the graphic quality is not as good.''
A marriage between the two technologies is in the works, said Chris Comfort, Magellan's director of advertising. By the end of 1995, Magellan, ContentWare and Apple all expect to produce CD-ROMs that will work with online services to let shoppers order by modem. The way it works now, CD-ROM shoppers have to fax or phone in their orders.
by CNB