Toronto–After some 80 years as a single-channel retailer, Canadian general merchandise marketer Canadian Tire Corp. has gone multichannel. With its March catalog, the company gave consumers the opportunity to phone in orders for the first time ever. (The retailer has circulated a big-book catalog for years, but it acted solely as a traffic driver, with no direct-response capability). Customers have had the chance to order online since November, when Canadian Tire launched its Website.
The new 438-page catalog offers 11,000 SKUs of merchandise. The Website offers 12,000 items, but that will increase to 20,000 by the end of the year.