• by Ross Fadner , October 7, 2004

Consumers who shop from catalogs are making more purchases by clicking a mouse, and less by dialing the phone, according to a new report from DoubleClick catalog/retail unit Abacus. Released yesterday, the 2004 Abacus Annual Catalog Industry Trend Report says that Web site sales are likely to surpass call-center sales within the next 18-24 months.

Consumers have traditionally made catalog purchases by telephoning call centers, but according to the new report, online sales accounted for a full one-third of catalog purchases in 2003. This is expected to increase to 36 percent in 2004 and 40 percent in 2005, at the expense of call-centers' and in-store's shares of sales. In 2003, in-store sales represented 24 percent, and call-center sales, 43 percent.

John Black, Abacus Product Manager and author of the trend report, said that the marketing strategies of traditionally offline and online retailers are starting to converge. Because of this, he underscored the importance for catalog marketers of measuring and managing sales generated by all sales channels, which includes call-center, Web site, in-store, and other direct response Web channels such as search, affiliate, and e-mail.

Black said marketers' offline and online measurement and management strategies "can no longer be siloed." Rather, marketers need to focus on monitoring all campaigns together, he said, or they run the risk of diluting the effectiveness of the collective effort by as much as 50 percent.

Black noted, for example, that the siloed marketing approach leads some marketers to cut back on catalog mailings because of under-performing call-center and mail-in sales. Without proper management, traditional-side marketers are unaware that this in-turn hurts online sales because less people receive the catalogs.

The growth of online at the expense of call-center, mail-in, and in-store sales is underscored by previous Abacus Catalog Industry Trend Report data. Whereas four years ago call-center order sizes were 13 percent higher than online orders, average order sizes are now equal both on- and offline, as consumers have become more comfortable with online purchases.