The facts: Catalog Choice for Merchants is the only free, secure, easy-to-use solution for companies to respect the mail preferences of consumers.
The alternative: Consumers can call a company’s customer support line to make the opt-out request. Based on industry research, it takes three to five minutes to complete a call, and at .70 cents/minute, that will cost the merchant between $2.10 and $3.50 for each opt-out request.
The merchant math: 10,000 opt-out requests @ average cost of $3.00 per call = $30,000.
This is much more expensive than downloading a file. The economics seem compelling to our industry experts and many merchants that we’ve spoken to. In addition to the pure dollars and cents, every merchant we have spoken to knows that it makes good business sense to respect your customers’ mail preference.
On the consumer side of the equation, it takes approximately 10 seconds to complete the opt-out form in Catalog Choice. If you are required to call the merchant to make your request, you can complete your opt-out request for an individual merchant in four minutes, on average.
The consumer math: 50 opt-out requests will take 8.3 minutes to complete at Catalogchoice.org. 50 opt-out phone calls will take 3.3 hours or almost 200 minutes. These are the kinds of productive gains our economy needs – a service that is 24 times faster than the current method and saves resources all in one step. So instead of 550,000 people spending 433,333 hours (18,055 days) opting-out of over 6.5 million titles, Catalog Choice members are applying the power of the Internet and skills of great software developers to do the work much faster.
That is what I call a win-win. Cost savings for merchants and more time in the day for consumers.
If you had three extra hours, what would you do?
It’ll be good idea to estimate cost of creating (planning, development, testing, roll-out) and maintaining in-house opt-out service.
And multiply on number of companies, since I never noticed link for opt-out from catalog (in addition to request) on merchants web sites.
I just spent about 5 minutes ($3 to them) on the phone with Garnet Hill’s customer service, because it refused my request through CatalogChoice.org. Get this, they “couldn’t” find me in the database, even with customer number…then how did I receive their catalog on Jan. 24, allowing them yesterday to refuse my request? BTW Garnet Hill is owned by Cornerstone Brands, which also owns Frontgate, TravelSmith, Improvements, etc…all listed as unconfirmed on my My Choices page as yet…bet they will soon refuse.
Sorry, I meant to say the 5-minute call with Garnet Hill cost them approx. $3.50…math synapses not firing this morning.
I, too, needed to call Garnet Hill to opt out. By refusing my request through Catalog Choice, Garnet Hill changed my view of them from positive/neutral to quite negative. Garnet Hill must respect consumers’ time and accept Catalog Choice requests in the future.
Catalog Choice shows Title Nine as refusing requests, for both me and separately for my S.O. Title Nine swears that they are more than happy to honor Catalog Choice requests and that Catalog Choice is misrepresenting their position. I have to acknowledge that they were extremely helpful and responsive on the phone, and that before I even mentioned Catalog Choice, they guessed why I was calling. So, my question is, how often does Catalog Choice update vendors’ status? Is this possibly just the result of an early entry in the database that has never been updated?
I just had to call Garnet Hill as well. I I made a note of the date in the handy “note” section. If they do not comply this time around, I will read them the riot act and make sure they know that I will never in my life shop from a Cornerstone brand.
I signed up with CatalogChoice in November 2007. Of the five catalogs that I requested stop, none (zero) have stopped. By the looks of some of the other comments, it seems that I am not alone. I believe that the concept was nice but the effectiveness is dismal. I think that the merchants just simply ignore the requests. I don’t think it’s worth the time to bother with this service.
John – I understand your disappointment. However, you should know that the voices of over 560,000 Catalog Choice Members have gotten the attention of the top executives in the direct marketing industry. It is taking longer than we had hoped, but we expect that respecting consumers choices will prevail in the end.
Tim – we contact the refused merchants regularly. We will call Title Nine on Monday to see if they have changed their mind about Catalog Choice.
Chuck
Executive Director, Catalog Choice.
In regards to Title Nine, I emailed customer service on the 3rd of February to get off the mailing list. On the 4th of February I received a response from them. Here is the response:
Thanks for contacting Title Nine. CatalogChoice.org is still in the beta
phase of the site and never formerly contacted our company to
participate in their removal service. Thus, any requests that go through
CatalogChoice.org are still automatically refused; we are currently in
the process of working with them to remedy this.
Please know we would still be happy to remove you. Please be advised
that as our catalogs are printed in advance, you may receive 1-2 more.
Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
Cheers!
———————–
Ada
Title Nine/Customer Service
1.800.342.4448
http://www.titlenine.com
Thanks for posting this note. We have been in contact with the President of Title Nine several times. We will contact her again on Monday to see if they are now prepared to start working with us. We hope they are!
Dear John R.,
You do not seem to understand the necessity of patience & persistence in the art of change. Quitters are losers. I encourage any who feel despondent over the continued receipt of catalogs to stick with the game. Green will prevail! And John, I suggest you take your ADD meds or get out of our way. Thank you!
If nothing else this has opened my eyes to the paper waste that is coming through my mailbox. I am up to 51 catalogs that I receive but don’t want! How can this happen? I never order from them. If catalog choice doesn’t work I will get on the phone and put a stop to this. Go green!
I like your concept. The name Catalog Choice is incorrect. To be catalog choice you need to be able to offer choice. The only choice I see is that which removes one from a catalog list – in such an opportunity exist for that catalog.
Provide a list of those catalogs participating and allow an option for consumers to subscribe to their catalogs. I feel better knowing I can relate with a business that cares enough about me to let me go if for one reason or another I so decide to leave their mail list. That company has a great chance of getting me back when I am ready.
Keep up the good work on constantly contacting those companies refusing to participate. Include a list of those companies for consumer to view and make sure that list includes contact information so that consumers are able to contact them and ad their opinions of support for their joining Catalog Choice program.
Erik:
Opting-in to an e-mail relationship with the participating merchants is coming soon. We provided the link to each merchant’s website right now so you can opt-in to their catalog through their services at this time. Thanks for your support.
I like the changes you made to “My Choices” page. It is much easier to use now.
I also had to call Garnett Hill ( and they were not very nice!) and Title Nine, to ask them to please stop sending catalogs to me.
I am hopeful about your service, and think that it takes time to change minds and habits. Go Green!
I find it interesting that, as soon as I had placed an order through Sundance, I received a spate of unrequested catalogues. My theory is that Sundance sold my address to other merchants. I would be curious to know what that information was worth in dollars and cents. How much did a company make off of information that is my right, and only my right, to share?
There is a timely pro & con commentary in today’s (3/16/08 Sunday’s) “Rutland Herald” and “Times Argus” (Vermont newspapers) about legislation being considered in VT, similar to the national “do not call” registry. If enacted, VT residents can sign up for a single registry to opt out of catalog junk mail. Of course it is opposed by the “direct mail” media. We could use this on a national level.
I’ve been trying since November to use Catalog Choice to get rid of all these catalogs. So far, I don’t notice any difference. I also think this is a good idea which is probably not working. I think we need to take care of the problem via leigislation.
Please remove my name from future mailings. I called the 800# and just got the recording to email the removal. Please remove ASAP.Thanks!
When Frederick’s of Hollywood refused to delete my name from their mailing list, I wrote them an email stating I would refuse to do business online or in store as long as I received their catalog. They responded within two days requesting my information and assuring me that my name would be removed from their catalog. I would have called, but it would have been a toll call. I have had good luck with the toll free numbers provided when the merchant refuses to remove my name. Thank you Catalog Choice.