Cleaning supplies and home improvement products merchant QCI Direct has trimmed down its catalogs. The company’s Home Trends, Sleep Solutions and Picket Fence titles have all gone from a full-size to a slim-jim format in the past year—a move that has saved 12% in postage costs, says president Jane Glazer.
After last year’s prodigious postal rate increase–boosting some catalogers’ costs by 20% to 40%–Glazer says the decision was clear: “We switched because the new USPS rates for standard size catalogs made it impossible for us to continue.”
Glazer says QCI Direct–a family-run business for the past 25 years–switched its 56 page Picket Fence titles and its 52 page Sleep Solutions catalog to slim-jims at the start of this year. When it saw no drop off in response, it changed the 80-page fall Home Trends catalogs to the slim-jim size as well, she says.
The Home Trends catalog mails monthly; while the other two books mail roughly every six weeks. Annually, Glazer says QCI Direct’s total catalog circulation is about 48 million. The company also sells goods through its Website and a store located in New York.
Slim-jim catalogs indeed have helped many a mailer get through tough times by reducing postage and paper costs. Typically, a slim-jim’s dimensions are roughly 6-1/8″ × 11-1/2″ and typically up to 1/4″ thick; it is cheaper to mail than a full size book, and the smaller trim size means less paper. Glazer says her company’s slim-jims are 6” x 10-1/2”.
The 12% savings in postage costs “is huge,” Glazer says. And QCI Direct’s customers appear to be fine with the changes. “Our customers have not responded negatively and, as always, are more concerned with the products we sell and the service that goes with it,” she says.