OneCall Pleased with Catalog Results

Although Spokane, WA-based OneCall has been in business in one form or another for 95 years, the consumer electronics marketer just launched a print catalog this past October. But as if to make up for lost time, it mailed a second edition in late May, increasing circulation from 250,000 to 275,000.

“Adding a catalog program just supplements what’s already a pretty substantial advertising program that’s been around for some time,” says marketing/advertising manager Jeremy Conant. The company, which includes a Website and a Spokane store, Huppin’s Hi-Fi Photo & Video, also advertises in electronics and photography magazines and sends a monthly e-newsletter providing information on upcoming sales.

With prices ranging from $100 bags, tripods, and discount cameras to $13,000 large-screen plasma television sets, the company is seeing an average purchase order of $795 and a 1% response rate, Conant says. Forty percent of those who received the first edition of the catalog were rented names, as were 35% of those who received the second catalog.

The 64-page catalog sells more than 500 products. The Website, launched in 1995, sells an additional 5,000 items, including accessories such as connectors, camcorder batteries, cabling, and adapters. The second edition of the catalog featured somewhat more educational content. The design was tweaked as well, with images enlarges and layouts alter to be “more snappy,” Conant says.