The Internet has become an established channel among catalogers. Ninety-one percent of catalogers say they have an active presence on the Net, according to the Internet portion of the DMA State of the Catalog Industry Report, which was released yesterday.
Among those with an active presence, 89% are consumer catalogs and 95% are business-to-business titles.
Catalogers are using the Internet to attract new customers too. Respondents said 44% of their online customers had never purchased from the company before.
The study also shows that catalogs expect to generate 9% of sales from their Web sites this year — more than double the Web sales in 1999.
“It’s clear that the Internet is helping catalogs grow their overall business rather than shifting business between marketing channels,” said DMA president H. Robert Wientzen in a statement.
Other findings include:
* 25% of catalogs with a Web presence have been online for more than four years.
* Catalogers are using the Internet mainly to generate sales (85%). Others use it for lead generation (68%), customer service (63%) and inventory liquidation (58%).
* 80% of all catalogs offer online transactions, including 100% of consumer catalogs and 57% of B-to-B catalogs.
Other aspects of the report will be released in the next few weeks. The study is the result of a survey of more than 100 catalog executives on business performance from 1999.
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