Where It's Always Spring

In the sunny new world of catalogue merchandising, the season last week was --as always--spring. Fat as telephone books, fancy as fashion magazines, and filled with as many as 130,000 items, some 20 million post-Christmas catalogues from Sears, Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and J. C. Penney were arriving in American homes. And where once the catalogues were addressed mainly to farm folk and small-town people, today they go mostly to suburbanites. Metropolitan areas now account for 60% of sales.

Boots & Bed Sheets. Even more important to catalogue merchants than area is the age market they reach. Says Charles Wood, Montgomery Ward's merchandising vice president: "The mail-order catalogue has been converted into a telephone order book for teenagers and the young families of today. There is new emphasis on the 50% of the population that is younger than 25." To attract younger shoppers, all three major catalogues now lead with sophisticated styles. To make their clothes "in," counteract the year's lead time they must contend with, and gain more of the market, Wards and Penney have signed up name designers. Wards (last year's total sales: $1.8 billion) has twelve international designers, among them Jacques Heim, Rudi Gernreich, Fabiani and Clodagh of Dublin. J. C. Penney's (1965 sales: $2.3 billion) "Young Junior" look is by Mary Quant, Mitzou of Madrid, Ariel of Paris. Sears (1965 sales: $6.9 billion) calls its collection "Junior Route 1966," describes it as "young, racy, right in style." The catalogue companies have not, of course, completely forsaken the good old-fashioned bestsellers. For livestock raisers, Sears still offers its "Ee-Zz Off Dehorner and Castration Set." Wards, which printed its first one-page mailorder "catalogue" in 1872, carries men's high-topped shoes for $12.97--but it does a much faster business in "bold, British-inspired demiboots" for teen-aged boys at $9.77. For the folk-singing set, the catalogues offer guitars at up to $219.95. "Super Stock Drag Tires" are available at $34.80 apiece. Sears last year introduced a 64-page special catalogue of imported-car parts, saw the entire 200,000-copy issue snapped up almost immediately. The home furnishings lists have been upgraded, now include double-door refrigerators, solid state hi-fis, print and pastel bed sheets.

For the youth whose father makes him tend the lawn, Wards offers an electric leaf sweeper at $87.95. Sears, which has half the total catalogue market, has an 80-page section in its new catalogue on recreational equipment, including golf carts, scuba gear, and a 17-ft. cabin cruiser for $2,645.

Color & Curiosity. After World War II, as suburban shopping centers appeared throughout the U.S., catalogue sales slumped badly. But the shopping centers in a sense have become a victim of their own success: they are congested. Thus, taking advantage of what they term "the convenience factor," catalogue companies today emphasize telephone shopping. Sears maintains 58 catalogue switchboards around the nation, keeps the busiest of them open on a round-the-clock basis. Credit purchasing has been added to catalogues, and deliveries have been speeded up. Catalogue prices run 4% under those of retail stores because of savings in sales forces and advertising. Catalogue sales, as a result, now account for more than one-fourth of all sales volume and are growing fast.

Filled with color photographs and running to as many as 1,300 pages, the catalogues themselves cost up to $2 apiece to produce. This makes them too expensive for lower-volume local department stores. But for chains working on national volume, each catalogue returns about $40 in sales. The chains can also flood areas where sales are slow with catalogues sent to "curiosity customers," use them to spot promising store locations as well. Sears estimates that an area producing $1,000,000 in sales a year can support a store. Catalogues are also an increasing headache to local department stores because they frequently describe varieties of merchandise better than sales clerks are able to. And for the bargain-minded shopper, they offer a tempting possibility. Gathering her catalogues, reaching for the telephone, she can do her comparison shopping without ever getting up out of a chair.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.