I used to think that the crown jewel for an emerging consumer website was to be featured on the front page of Yahoo. In October, we were honored to be on the Yahoo front page all morning on a Saturday. On that day, over 22,000 people registered at catalogchoice.org.
Well, now I know for sure that the crown jewel is to be featured on the Today Show. Today, the feature story about Catalog Choice on The Today show generated three tidal waves of new members at Catalog Choice. The first wave came at 8:20 AM eastern standard time right after Ann Curry’s segment ran. Wave Two came an hour later when it ran in central time. The third wave hit when the west coast tuned in to the Today Show. Steadily through the day, as people talked about our simple free service at work, new members flowed in. In the end, almost 57,000 new members signed up at catalogchoice.org today. Over 30,000 invitations were sent using our Invite a Friend feature.
What we experienced today was the power of television to reach a mass audience and the power of the Internet to provide a free and easy service to give consumers the choices that they want.
YEA!!! Fantastic program!!! Wish I had thought of it!
I’m still within the 10-week window on pretty much all catalogs. I can’t wait until I see all those green “confirmed” notices and the catalogs stop coming. I have had to do battle with two companies – Sierra Trading Post being the worst – who have refused to honor the request. Yes – they will cancel if you contact them directly, but who has time to contact a hundred or more catalog companies? And icing on the cake -the temptation to spend money will also go away!
Thank you to the Peruvian Connection for honoring my request for no more catalogs. I received another one today. No, this wasn’t a “we’ve already printed them up for the next 6 months” one. My first name was misspelled. So they have gotten the misspelled name from yet another rented or sold name list (I’ve already had 10+ random catalogs with the misspelled name)And so the cycle begins again…….
I am a little later signing up but am doing so also because of The Today Show.
It’s a nice idea, but CC is misleading its members. A friend just unsubscribed from a catalog, but CC told him the merchant refused to honor his request. However, the merchant is not a member of CC and did not receive the request. This is VERY misleading. CC also advised my friend to call and complain to the merchant. Kind of a strong-arm tactic to get a merchant to sign on, isn’t it? (I assume CC will charge the merchant.)
Leon – cut them a break. This is a new website, a new program. And the response they’ve had is no doubt overwhelming. If they haven’t had a chance to refine every word on their website yet, or to explain fully every single aspect of the system, it would be more productive to explain your concern in constructive terms rather than being critical. And if you look at the merchants page, you will see that there is NO charge to the merchant! Sadly, you do have to strong-arm some of these merchants. I have talked to several who actually did refuse the request. They just don’t want to cooperate, for reasons I don’t get. Why force consumers to write to each of them individually, sometimes numerous times, before you can get off their mailing lists? Who has that kind of time or patience? And since they will eventually honor your request, why not do it this way instead of angering a customer and wasting the customer’s time? This service benefits everyone.
I’m thrilled to rid my house of unwanted catalogs. Use the internet instead! Also, what a great way to help the environment. Fewer trips to the recycling center. REDUCE is better than reuse or recycle.
Ellen,
Thanks for clarifying about the fee. It’s good to know that.
Actually, I DID contact CC via their online form but have not heard back yet. I think I was a little frustrated because I could not find a phone number, email address, or physical address on the website or even as part of the domain registry (CC used a proxy service to register their domain name).
In the contact form I sent CC, I did offer constructive advice. I suggested they use wording like:
We are sorry, but this merchant is not yet signed up as a Catalog Choice partner. Please make your request directly to the merchant at (Merchant Toll-Free Phone).
It is entirely invisible to users of the site whether a particular merchant has any association with CC. Because of that, it is important to word things clearly. I am a web programmer by trade and I understand the difficulties of putting out a new site. However, clarity to the end user is one of the top goals and should be carefully addressed before the site goes live.
The other tangent concern I have is that CC is not the only organization that exists for the same purpose. I’m sure that each such service has a different method of communicating with merchants. What I would really like to see is some sort of consortium that would be the central point for any opt-out requests. But I know it all has to start somewhere.
I vote that CC be the ‘consortium’ LB so eloquently suggests. Sounds like LB works for a catalog vendor.
LB – I think it is just a handful of people working in overdrive at this point, so it would take some time to get a response. I don’t think they anticipated this avalanche of requests and publicity. It’s just a few conservation NGOs working together – probably with very little funding (I work for an NGO – very little funding is the name of the game for all but a very few of the very biggest). My major concern is that they may have jumped in too quickly, before solidifying deals with merchants, and that when the 10 weeks is up, we’ll still be receiving all these catalogs. I don’t know if there are other consortia that do the same thing, except the Direct Marketers Association, and the reason I never went that route is that it is all-or-nothing. You can’t pick-and-choose. I’m distressed to read that Garnet Hill isn’t cooperating. I like their merchandise and had planned to continue receiving their catalog, but if they won’t do anything to help the environment, I will take my business elsewhere. I also didn’t know that they are part of the same group as FrontGate, Grandin Road, etc. I requested that these be stopped. If they aren’t cooperating, it means that I will continue to receive the many catalogs this group sends me. So I’m willing to wait for CC to work out bugs, but if the system ends up failing entirely, then we’ve all wasted our time, money, and hope.
Ellen:
Thanks for your input. In the short-term, you may continue to receive more catalogs than you want, but that does not mean that our service is not working. We ask for your patience while we work through the details with the Direct Marketing industry. You are not wasting your time, money or hope.
We are a community of over 550,000 people. Our collective voice is being heard in every executive’s office across the United States.
My mother’s mailbox was overrun daily with catalogs. Thank GOD I discovered catalog choice.
I have unsubscribed to 102(!!) catalogs for her.
Most did not have customer numbers, which tells me she did not have a relationship with those merchants. They got her name & address, I suspect, by buying it from other merchants.
Catalogs can become a virus that is re-inflicted upon the consumer by merchants where a person actually buys. Then it grows (replicates)
They can get really naasty.
Take back control over your mailbox!