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Direct-mail practitioners counter that their product is the solution, not the problem. Mail-order shopping helps the environment, they argue, by keeping consumers out of cars, saving gas and motor oil and reducing air pollution. On the issue of privacy, they contend that direct mail is the least intrusive way to reach consumers. "It's not like a commercial where you have to wait a whole minute for the evening news to continue, or a billboard that blocks the scenery, or the telephone call that gets you out of the bathtub," says copywriting maestro Bill Jayme of Sonoma, Calif. "If you're not interested, you just throw it out." Says Denison Hatch, publisher of the industry newsletter Who's Mailing What!: "Junk mail is a good offer sent to the wrong person."
Proponents contend that direct mail is the most efficient way to organize and rally support for public causes. "How else do you communicate with people?" asks Peter Bahouth, executive director of Greenpeace USA. "For better or worse, it's the lifeblood of the community." Advocates argue that direct mail actually fosters democracy. "It is a very decentralizing force," says Roger Craver of Falls Church, Va., who raises money through the mails for liberal causes. "In many ways, it has revolutionized American politics."
Certainly it has revolutionized the way Americans conduct business. Once upon a time, direct mail evoked only two names: Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears. Ward, a Midwest traveling salesman, had a simple idea: "Sell directly to the consumer and save them the profit of the middleman." In 1872 he published a one-page listing of 163 items, from red flannel cloth to oilcloth table covers, and mail order as we know it today was born. Fourteen years later, Sears, a Minnesota railroad-station agent, decided to mail a few $12 watches to his peers for $14 apiece. When the ploy worked, Sears hooked up with a Chicago watchmaker named A.C. Roebuck to establish a mail-order business. By 1927 Sears, Roebuck was mailing 75 million letters and catalogs.
Over the next six decades, the explosion of merchandise catalogs was so immense that competition from more specialized retailers finally demolished one of its originators: in 1985 Montgomery Ward left the catalog business. Today's big sellers include J.C. Penney, L.L. Bean, Lands' End and Sears. In 1989 Bean, the famous Maine purveyor of outdoor gear, took in almost 90% of its $600 million net sales from the 116 million catalogs it mailed. Wisconsin's Lands' End sold $545 million worth of clothing and domestic items last year through its 90 million catalogs. "It's always fun to have them arriving at the door," says Lands' End president Richard Anderson. "It's like having Christmas every day."
But even the most tolerant consumer might feel like Scrooge in the face of so much postal excess, no matter how worthy the touted product or cause. Last year the Red Cross responded to Hurricane Hugo and the San Francisco earthquake by mailing 12 million appeals, twice the organization's usual annual outpouring. Disabled American Veterans sent 38.5 million fund-raising pieces. In the case of some nonprofit organizations, as much as 90% of all funds raised through mail campaigns are applied to more mailings to raise more money.