A major shift in how customers use catalogs occurred this year, according to the DoubleClick Holiday 2004 Shopping Report: Catalog and Multi-Channel Purchase Behavior. In the past year, the proportion of catalog-originated orders coming through the web vs. through the call center has grown from 30% to 50%. “While the shift has been occurring for some time, this looks to us like a very significant shift in just one year,” says a DoubeClick spokesman.
The shift is also pronounced among three-channel retailers, says DoubleClick, a marketing company. In 2003, 54% of catalog-driven orders were recorded at call centers, 22% online and 24% in stores. In 2004, 36% occurred online, 35% at call centers and 29% in stores.
DoubleClick bases its 2004 Shopping Report: Catalog and Multi-Channel Purchase Behavior on aggregate data derived from a subset of DoubleClick’s Abacus customers using the ChannelView analytics product. The report analyzed catalog volume drop rates and multi-channel sales analysis from Labor Day through the first week of November.
“The holy grail for marketers has been the ability to connect information from multiple marketing initiatives to various sales channels,” said Brian Rainey, president of Abacus, a division of DoubleClick. “Marketers that can connect data from catalog mailings to call centers, web sites and retail stores represent the sophisticated top tier of multi-channel retailers. They clearly understand the changing role of the catalog, enabling them to truly leverage the power of this medium and drive shoppers to each of their sales channels.”
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