Northern Exposure

With the U.S. economy faltering and catalogers still reeling from last year’s severe postage increases, mailers could do worse than consider Canada, the market at their doorstep that’s more similar to the United States than some may think.

Laurene Cihosky, Canada Post’s senior vice president for direct marketing, explains why mailing there now may be a good idea since the U.S. dollar’s value is so low.

DIRECT: Why do you think Canada is so attractive to U.S. catalogers and other direct mailers right now?

CIHOSKY: I would say because it’s a market of 33 million underserved shoppers.

DIRECT: How do you mean that?

CIHOSKY: Canada Post spent a lot of time researching the attitudes of Canadian shoppers and one of the top things we found was a lack of choice. The Canadian market is much smaller than the United States’, and as a result Canadians are underserved.

DIRECT: What are some problems marketers might encounter in Canada?

CIHOSKY: Historically, some of the big barriers have been [related to] price. The exchange rate for many years has not worked in Canadians’ favor. That’s gone away. We hit a peak last October when the Canadian dollar was trading at $1.10 U.S. That was like the floodgates opening. Those numbers were escalating over the Christmas shopping period last year and we’re seeing growth