Exchanging lists with competitors has long been a touchy subject among catalogers. But it appears that more mailers are doing business with the enemy, so to speak. Among respondents to the 2000 Catalog Age Benchmark Survey on Lists, 30% were exchanging their lists with competitors, but among respondents to the 2002 survey, that percentage nearly doubled, to 59%.
“There’s been a coming to terms on the catalog front,” notes Ben Perez, president of Peterborough, NH-based list company Millard Group. “Catalogers are finding it in their best interests to work together and leverage their assets. It’s the reality of the competitive landscape,” he says, “because although they compete with each other, they’re also competing with other sales channels.”
Geoff Batrouney, executive vice president of New Rochelle, NY-based list firm Estee Marketing Group, points to the exchange agreement several years ago between the catalog divisions of archrivals Warner Bros. and Disney Direct Marketing Services as a turning point. “The senior managers realized that Warner’s major competition is not Disney but in a larger sense is Wal-Mart,” Batrouney says.
Batrouney has six catalog clients “who are clearly, openly, and directly competitive,” he says, “but they realize it’s better to work on accessing each other’s customer files selectively, rather than wasting money trolling for those elusive customers elsewhere.”
Although Quincy, MA-based women’s apparel cataloger/retailer J. Jill Group exchanges lists with most competitors, there are exceptions. “Competitors who are smaller or just getting started don’t have as much to give back to us in an exchange of prospects,” says John Hayes, president of J. Jill Direct. “So why let them grow and fuel their growth through our lists, which are bigger?”
Indeed, many catalogers have some sort of stipulations about renting or exchanging their lists with competitors. For instance, Beverly, MA-based women’s apparel mailer Appleseed’s will not rent or exchange its list with competitors who refuse to rent or exchange their names, says vice president of marketing Carl Erickson. “We’re totally open — as long as it’s a reciprocal-type deal,” he says.