Younger shoppers fueling catalogs’ rebound

Some say thumbing better than clicking

PORTLAND, Maine — Catalogs, those glossy paper-and-ink offerings of outdoor apparel, kitchenware and fruit baskets, are not yet headed for the recycling bin of history.

Until recently, the future appeared grim for the mailbox-stuffers. A onetwo punch of postal rate increases and the Great Recession had cut their numbers. Common wisdom had everything retail-related moving online.

But a catalog-industry rebound appears in the works, fueled in part by what might seem an unlikely group: younger shoppers who find it’s sometimes easier, more satisfying and even nostalgic, flipping pages rather than clicking links.

Industry experts say that all of those catalogs crammed into mailboxes this holiday season are a sign that mailings have stabilized — and might be growing — after a decline of about 40 percent since the Great Recession.

New companies are mailing catalogs. And even dyed-in-the-wool online retailers like Amazon and Bonobos are getting into the act.

“They’re tapping out on what they’re able to do digitally,” said Tim

Curtis, president of CohereOne, a direct marketing agency in California. “They’ve got to find some new way to drive traffic to their websites.”

Catalog retailers slashed mailings, and some abandoned catalogs altogether, after a major U.S. Postal Service rate increase and the start of the recession in late 2007. Catalog numbers dropped from about 19 billion in 2016 to an estimated 11.5 billion in 2018, according to the AmericanCatalog Mailers Association.

The industry still faces challenges, but there is reason for some optimism, said Hamilton Davison, president of the mailers association.

Millennials who are nostalgic for vinyl records and all things vintage are thumbing through catalogs and dog-earing the pages. It’s a new demographic roughly from 22 to 38 that is helping to breathe some new life into the sector, according to industry officials.

In fact, millennials are more likely than baby boomers to visit a store based on mailings, according to the U.S. Postal Service inspector general.

Sarah Johnson says she loves flipping through catalogs at her convenience — but gets her hackles up when retailers fill her email inbox.

“Promotion emails drive me crazy,” said Johnson, 29, of Vernal, Utah. “When there’s a catalog lying on the table, it feels like it’s my choice to pick it up and flip through it. When it arrives in my inbox, it feels like it’s imposing on me,” she said.

Angela Hamann, another millennial, said she prefers catalogs because it’s easier than scrolling through webpages to evaluate a retailer’s offering.

“It’s a great way to assess what a company has to offer without making a bunch of clicks,” said Hamann, 37, of New Gloucester, Maine.

In Austin, Texas, tech company worker Mike Trimborn described himself as a “nearly 100 percent online shopper” who sees catalogs as an “exercise in futility.” But he waxed nostalgic when he received a toy catalog from Amazon in the mail this holiday season.

“It was such a fun experience when I was a kid. To be able to give that to my kids was a surprise,” he said.

Robert F. Bukaty The Associated Press The paper-and-ink offerings that are mailed retail catalogs have yet to disappear in the age of digital shopping. In fact, a rebound appears to be taking place.