San Francisco–With his company’s ramped-up catalog about to hit the big time next month, Dixon Bartlett, senior vice president of marketing and merchandising for home furnishings retailer Storehouse, is attending the Annual Catalog Conference to pick up ideas on how to do the same with Storehouse’s Website. The company plans to make the site transactional early next year.
For the past several years, Storehouse has distributed a 16-page brochure inside copies of some 4 million newspapers in the vicinities of the company’s 61 stores. But beginning July 15, the Atlanta-based marketer will mail a 64-page catalog to retail customers and a modest number of rented names, Bartlett said.
“We’re taking this vehicle we’ve typically called our sale brochure and turning it into something resembling more of a mail order piece,” Bartlett said. “The new mailing will be very small, but I wouldn’t say it’s a test, because we know our customers will respond to it, and it’ll certainly get their attention.”
Aside from its higher page count, the catalog won’t look significantly different from the brochure, which Storehouse will continue to produce. Both are printed on glossy stock in four color.
“Our main intent is to grow the catalog as a sales-generating vehicle, not only as a convenience for our store customers but also to begin doing some prospecting as well,” Bartlett said. “We want to develop the catalog as its own sales channel in addition to being a promotional tool.”