(2 of 2)
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.