ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609200010
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: SHOPPING
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
You may want to empty your magazine and catalog basket within the next few weeks. The Christmas catalogs are in the mail.
Yes, it's only mid-September. And yes, the kids just went back to school - and you're probably still paying those bills. But when has that ever stopped mail-order merchants?
Catalogers play a crucial timing game as they attempt to gauge consumers' Christmas-cheer levels months in advance. They're trying to capture both ends of the shopping spectrum: the people who start their Christmas shopping months in advance, and those of us who wait until Dec. 22 to start compiling lists and then have to overnight all our gifts.
"The market has really just broadened in terms of how long people are considering the Christmas season," said Donna Krampf, spokeswoman for the Direct Marketing Association Inc., a New York trade group.
Although the expansion of overnight shipping services has lengthened the Christmas shopping season by making it possible for us to order almost until the 25th - if we're willing to pay the extra postage charge - merchants still have an incentive to send their catalogs out early. They have a better chance of being noticed by shoppers if their book arrives in September than during the late-November crush. Also, they can start to gauge early on what's selling so they can order more merchandise.
They'd like us last-minute shoppers to change our habits because we create pileups at catalog ordering and shipping centers. Pileups create long phone waits and out-of-stock merchandise. And they, of course, create irate customers. To encourage people to shop early, some catalogers may offer early-bird discounts - 5 percent off your total order, for instance, or reduced shipping and handling costs if you order by a certain date.
But mail-order merchants can't jump the gun. If they send out their catalogs too early, they risk colliding with the back-to-school season, when families are running up bills for jeans and underwear and Trapper Keepers - and when spending money for Christmas presents is the last thing on parents' minds.
Catalogs sent early in the season may end up buried under a pile of other catalogs that arrive later. And there will be plenty of Christmas catalogs in that stack by the time the real shopping rush begins. The average American household receives 1.7 catalogs per week year-round, Krampf said. That number can easily double or triple - or more, if you're an especially free-spending mail-order customer - during the holiday season.
And you'll likely get more Christmas catalogs this year than in 1995. Last year skyrocketing paper and postage costs forced many catalog merchants to cut their circulation and send books to only their best customers. This year, Krampf said, paper prices have stabilized and, thanks to this summer's reclassification of the mail system, postage costs have dropped for many catalogers. In response, catalogers are returning to their practice of prospecting - sending catalogs to households that aren't established customers.
Partly because of the annual Christmas deluge, the initial response to a catalog is typically the strongest, said John Keith, director of human resources for apparel merchant J. Crew, which operates an order and shipping center in Lynchburg. J. Crew will begin sending out its winter and holiday catalogs over the next four to six weeks, he said.
"The longer it's out there, the less [business] you generate," he said. "You send it too soon, people are likely to forget."
That's why, Krampf says, the start of the Christmas catalog season likely isn't going to get much earlier than this.
So you can quit grumbling about year-round Jingle Bells and start cleaning out that magazine rack.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB