Slimmer Pickings

The tall, skinny catalogs affectionately known as slim-jims are soon to be scarce, once the latest U.S. Postal Service modifications kick in on Sept. 8. The main sticking point with the new rules is the requirement for three non-perforated tabs to seal the letter-size booklets shut.

The tabs, several mailers say, make it harder for customers to open the catalogs. The seals don't do the cover design any favors, either. As a result, some catalogers are ditching the slim-jim books.

Multititle gifts mailer Miles Kimball is shifting its Walter Drake catalog from a slim-jim to a full-size format, says vice president of marketing Vicki Updike. Walter Drake's 96-page slim-jim catalog, which measured 5-3/8" × 8-3/4", is now a 56- to 64-page book with a 7" × 10-1/2" trim size, she says.

Walter Drake drops 12 times a year, with an annual circulation of about 40 million. In addition to Walter Drake and Miles Kimball, the company mails the Easy Comforts, Exposures, Home Marketplace, and As We Change catalogs.

The reason for the size switch? When Miles Kimball tested perforated tabs on Walter Drake, results showed the tabs suppressed response, Updike says. The tests were conducted with perforated tabs because “non-perforated, we assumed, would perform worse,” she adds.

Kitchen tools title Professional Cutlery Direct first started mailing as a slim-jim in 2000, says president Jay Alpert. It went to a full size in 2004, “after hearing so many success stories from other catalogers who made the transition.”

The cataloger did not experience the anticipated lift in response, however, so Alpert says it went back to slim-jims in 2006. But the mailer has just returned to the full size, due to the increased tabbing requirements.

Professional Cutlery Direct, which mailed its 72-page slim-jim book 16 times per year, made the switch to a 56-page full-size catalog in July. Alpert plans to stick with the larger size, “unless we see deteriorations in response rates, at which point we will consider going back to the slim-jim format.”

Smithfield Specialty Foods Group mails three of its five titles — Smithfield Collection, The Peanut Shop and Rocke's Meating Haus — as slim-jims. The company's Smithfield Hams and Basse's Choice catalogs are full-size books.

The slim booklets have worked well for Smithfield Specialty Foods, says Alexa Arnold Ricketts, director of catalog marketing, and the format made sense from an economic standpoint. But because of the tabbing requirements, Smithfield will convert the slim-jims to full-size catalogs starting in the fall.

The company will consider comailing to offset the cost of mailing full-size catalogs instead of slim-jims. Smithfield is also looking at reducing the number of catalogs it mails and lowering paper weights; it may even consolidate some of the catalog brands.

“It's gotten so complicated now,” Ricketts says. “I'm not sure what the right answer is any more, but we've looked at it from a loss of sales versus a loss of profit from the increased expense of the postage and tabbing.”

Smithfield doesn't have the resources to do extensive testing with the new tabs, Ricketts says. So it's basing its decision on information gathered from other catalogers' experiences and the financial impact on its P&L statements. Clearly, she notes, the Postal Service's new regulations “are designed to effectively kill the slim-jim business.”

INSIDE SKINNY

Catalogers have long had a love/hate relationship with slim-jims. Marketers love the tall, skinny booklets because they cost less to produce and mail than a full-size book. Especially after the massive postal rate hike in May 2007, which increased postage on average 20% to 40%, many marketers turned to the slim-jim.

But catalog designers and merchandisers don't like slim-jims because of the creative limitations: It's harder to make a product look good with the smaller format, measuring roughly 6" × 11", vs. a full-size book.

The Postal Service does not care for slim-jims either — it says the booklets were jamming USPS automated processing equipment because they were too fat and the tabs required to seal the pages weren't strong enough. That's why USPS put in stricter requirements this year.

As of May 11, machinable automated slim-jims (with two tabs, weighing 3 oz.) and machinable non-automated (nontabbed, weighing 3.3 oz.) catalogs are required to have the same physical characteristics: two tabs and a weight of no more than 3 oz.

The new weight limits alone reduce selling space by 10%, says Larry Davis, vice president of marketing for jewelry and gifts merchant Ross-Simons. But it's the tabbing requirements coming next month that have peeved Davis and others the most. “Tabbing kills our response rates by 25% to 50%,” Davis says. “The rules requiring three tabs have destroyed the format and will end 90% of slim-jim mail,” he surmises.

Carol Wisely, a consultant for food catalog agency 5th Food Group, agrees that the slim-jim tabs could be problematic: “It looks like you have to fight to get them open.”

But then Wisely never liked slim-jims. “They're not good for food titles,” she says.

Still, slim-jims used to be a great alternative for companies trying to get into catalogs, Wisely notes. With its new revisions for the letter-size booklets, she believes the USPS is “shooting itself in the foot.”

As catalogers look to implement new mailings, says Chris Haag, director of sales for Royle Printing, “the slim-jim format will drop from that of high consideration to one of the last choices,” thanks in part to the added tabbing cost and potentially reduced response rates.

KEEPING TABS

But the new tabs may not be as big a deterrent to getting catalogs opened as some mailers fear. Haag recently spoke with a cataloger who tested a two-tab book vs. a three-tab, non-perforated book. Surprisingly, he notes, “there was no difference in response rate.”

Kitchen gardening systems marketer AeroGrow International has already tested the slim-jim with the current tabs vs. the seals going into effect in September, says J. Michael Wolfe, vice president of operations and general manager of the direct response division. “We actually saw a slight improvement in results with the new tabs.”

Why is that? For one, AeroGrow's printer, Quad Graphics, “did a great job in helping us choose appropriate tabs that are still easy to open,” Wolfe says.

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