Catalogs are in style among e-retailers as TShirtKing.com plans its first
Online-only t-shirt vendor TShirtKing.com plans to launch its first paper catalog next year, president Bill Broadbent tells Internet Retailer. The company will test response initially with a mailing to about 5,000 of its house list and follow that up with a mailing to about 100,000. Of the customers now slated to receive catalogs, about 80% are repeat customers, Broadbent says. “Hopefully, next year each of these people will receive three catalogs from us,” he says.
Broadbent says the catalog, which will focus on the best sellers among TShirtKing.com’s approximately 2,000 designs, will promote awareness of the site among new audiences as well as function as an additional sales channel. “Part of that comes from giving people something to take with them to school or work,” says Broadbent.
TShirtKing will keep catalog costs down by keeping the catalog small and initially using its house list for distribution rather than renting an outside list. “If we break even on the catalog we will think we are doing well,” Broadbent says. “We are going to use the catalog as much for advertising as we are for sales.”
Even factoring in catalog production and shipping costs, Broadbent adds, he believes catalogs are beginning to look like a cost effective advertising option given the rising cost of pay per click advertising. With paid inclusion, keywords and paid feeds into search engines, “We now pay for almost half our traffic. When we started, we used to pay for almost none of it,” he says. “The pay-per-clicks have gotten so expensive that sending anything from a postcard to a tri-fold brochure to even a small catalog starts becoming more cost-effective.”
TShirtKing is among a growing group of Internet retailers in recent months who have launched or say they are planning to launch catalogs, including eBags.com, Altrec.com and BackcountryStore.com.
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