It has been said many times to never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. As Margaret Mead said, “Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” So, just as soon as the Catalog Choice team rolled out the new feature to alert you to the status of your opt-out requests, many of you saw the red “refused” notation for some of your declined catalogs and decided that you would not take “no” for an answer. Your calls and emails directly to catalog mailers, urging them to honor Catalog Choice requests, got their attention immediately. Many of you stated boldly to catalogers that you would stop buying from companies that don’t honor Catalog Choice opt-out requests, favoring instead to purchase from catalog mailers that do. The new “Bravo Merchant” feature not only gives well deserved kudos to merchants who participate in Catalog Choice but also let’s you click through directly to merchant Web sites to take advantage of ecommerce opportunities. Thanks to you–our dedicated members–catalog mailers are taking notice. Several companies that previously stated they would not participate in our service have changed their minds. Literally overnight. We thank all of you who have taken the time to express your heart-felt views to catalog companies. They are listening. Your actions are making a very significant difference in our ability, together, to change how the direct marketing industry does business. Thank you!
At Catalog Choice, we have a team of Merchant Account managers that work all day, every day to deliver the opt-out requests to Merchants. The team is lead by April Smith of the National Wildlife Federation. April penned this blog post.
while the format is good on this site, can you please improve the process to combine “all” addresses so that i can click one vendor’s name once and select “refuse” and have it apply to all variants of my name, including “resident” or “occupant” ……. or “our friends at…” at once, rather than have multiple lists?
please give that some consideration for an improved user interface.
Alan, to preserve a healthy relationship with our merchants, we need to provide them with the cleanest data possible, i.e. a single name/address combination that has a high probability of being found in their list. If we provided them, on a large scale, with a name and a blanket set of addresses, we’d be putting undue work on them. Does that make sense?
This is a wonderful service! Thank you for helping us conserve paper by refusing unwanted catalogs. Thank you on behalf of tree dwelling monkeys and air breathing people. Thank you for deep in my heart. :)
The email I sent to Pier 1 after learning of their refusal to honor my request:
> I am contacting you directly to say how unhappy I am that you refused this request. I have shopped at your stores in the past and will no longer shop at your stores because of this. It is irresponsible of you, as a company, not to honor your customers’ requests. Sending catalogs to customers who no longer wish to receive them is a waste of energy and resources. Services such as Catalog Choice make it convenient for consumers to stop unwanted junkmail, help reduce wasted energy and resources and should be accepted as a viable option by ALL companies to honor customer requests.
I contacted Sierra Traditions by phone today once I received word they had “refused” to remove my name from their mailing list via Catalog Choice. The reason they gave was that they are not comfortable with the privacy policies of Catalog Choice and that they are not sure those policies meet their standards. I feel pretty sure they were stalling until they had completed their “investigation” of Catalog Choice. But is there any reason to be worried about privacy issues with Catalog Choice?
Katie,
There is no reason at all to be concerned about privacy issues with Catalog Choice. We have a strong privacy policy and use a very secure web site. We have only one purpose: help consumers stop receiving the catalogs that they no longer wish to receive.
I joined catalogchoice a couple of months ago, and I’ve now opted out of 93 catalogs. There are 10 or 15 more that my wife still wants to receive. Recently I noticed that one retailer (whom I’ve never bought from and probably never will) had refused to honor my request. Today I went back to get the customer service number to call them and express my strongly-worded disapproval. Lo and behold — they’ve changed their mind! Now they’ve confirmed my request. That’s the power of a simple idea, an effective medium, and a large number of committed consumers.
Hi – can you consider adding the state identifiers for APO/FPO addresses? When I lived overseas with the military I got tons of catalogs I didn’t want. Those waste even more energy because they travel by air overseas and many other countries don’t have good paper recycling programs. It’s hard even to call the companies b/c the toll free numbers they have don’t work and toll ones aren’t easily findable. Please add AE, AP and AA to your state database.
I sent an email to Sundance Catalog telling them I was extremely disappointed that they were not honoring Catalog Choice requests. Now they are! Yay for Catalog Choice and the power of consumers!!
When I saw that Sierra Trading Post had refused the request to stop their catalog, I went to their website where I found a blog requesting stories about recent bike trips, camping trips, or “ecotours”. If they liked your story it would be put on the blog. This is the story I sent them:
“My trip would probably be considered an ecotour though I never left the chair in front of my computer. I have been at catalogchoice.org declining unwanted catalogs that are coming to my address for my brother – who moved to Venice, Italy 3 months ago.
Imagine my surprise when I see that Sierra Trading Post – the very same company that has a “Green Tips” Blogging Post offering ideas for saving water, gasoline, and the environment in general, as well as a paragraph on it’s catalog order form detailing their ‘Committment to the Environment’ (“Our catalogs are recyclable”) – has REFUSED to honor the request to stop sending unwanted catalogs! How incredibly hypocritical!
Rest assured that you will NEVER receive an order from me, my brother, or from the rest of my family and friends until you practice what you preach!”
What do you think the chances are that my story will get added to their blog?
Thank you Catalog Choice for this site and all the work you do!!
I contacted Griot’s Garage (refused my Catalog Choice request) and they answered the same day–willing to honor my direct request:
Nancy,
Thank you for your email. You’ve contacted the right place. I will take care of your request immediately. Just to clarify, our company chose not to participate in the Catalog Choice program because it delays how quickly we can get your name and address out of our mailing systems. The time lag caused by having a middleman could result in you receiving as many as 4 or 5 more catalogs from us. By contacting us directly, the maximum you might receive could be two, if one just happens to be in the mail to you right now and another is on the printing press, but that rarely happens. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reply to this email or call our Customer Service Department at (800) 345-5789 from 6:00am-6:00pm PST Monday-Friday or 7:00am-3:30pm PST Saturday. Thank you again for your email, and have a great day!
Have fun in your garage!
Sean Miller
Customer Service Representative
Griot’s Garage
800-345-5789 ext 177
smiller@griotsgarage.com
http://www.griotsgarage.com
I wonder if they get a few more direct requests, whether they might warm up to the idea…
Mr Miller, I do hope that many other companies care enough to provide your merchant input and really care. I truly believe you and what you have said. Remember, many catalogs have a “Mailing Preferance Clause” to contact them to “opt out” but apparently they forget what it is or where it is. These are the big ones that won’t give up the supplier of our mailing info. As a consumer, we want to know.
Emailing to catalogs to opt out is not always an option because there are consumers that do not always have that privilege or the funds.
We’ve been inundated by those catalogs my husband and I don’t want. With two mailings at too many variations to two addresses… and then they start again a new cycle. The suppliers of mailing info don’t care they’re making money and just want numbers.
Other catalogchoicers: Please do the math for 40-100 plus pages of a catalog at two addresses for atleast 20 name variations. Don’t you feel they need to delete by name vs address? And really do what they print or say? Please eliminate the “Or Current Resident” on our mailing info it’s not nice. That would be a good thing. Makes one feel better when they forget to send in a forwarding address change in time.
Catalogchoice: Many of our opt outs changed to request customer ID #s. What gives? The post office delivers by address not by customer ID#s and We’ve already sent the major abusers (300+ letters and one too many calls to apologetic Customer Service Reps -CSRs) that we are requesting deletion by address. Many of these abusers change the customer ID #s anyway and our names. Also,many of the repeat offenders are the “big evil ones” that just don’t get the story line or honor their Mail Preference Policy. (not your fault-you are trying).
Sounds like a movie – “the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” and we’ll change names to send out more mailings!
Sorry. Spending too much time with people that act their age……………… and loving it! My social skills are improving.