U.K.-based contemporary furnishings marketer Terence Conran Shop mailed its first transactional catalog in the U.S. in September to an undisclosed number of requesters. While it’s not the first Conran catalog to be mailed in the U.S., says spokesperson Jacqueline Tsui, it is the first to include an ordering form.
It’s also Conran’s first catalog to include editorial information on using the products to create a decor. “It shows you how to put together various pieces from the shop,” Tsui explains. “It pulls all the products together and shows how to make it work.”
To accompany the new catalog, the company also upgraded the U.S. Website, making it transactional as well. Tsui says it will include all 400 products offered in the print catalog, from $8 plates to $7,500 dressing tables.
The company has only one store in the U.S., in midtown Manhattan. One of the primary purposes of the catalog, Tsui says, is “to increase brand awareness beyond the [New York] area.”
Saying only that the company was “due for a catalog” in the U.S., Tsui says that Conran decided to launch it during the holiday buying season to make the most of the catalog’s “Ultimate Gift Department,” featuring what she describes as “really hip, must-have products–perfect gifts essentially.”
To promote the new catalog, the company conducted an instore advertising campaign and placed ads in New York-area newspapers to attract its target demographic, “the design-savvy consumer.”