Catalog Choice would like to clarify our statement regarding the DMA’s Mail Preference service www.dmachoice.org that was in our recent email to Catalog Choice members.

The mail preference services provided by the DMA are described here.

The DMA has dropped the credit card verification requirement only for the catalog opt-in/opt-out aspects of its Mail Preference Service (MPS).

The DMA still requires credit card verification to remove your name from DMA member prospect lists, which decreases the chances of your name being rented, sold, or exchanged.

According to their website - “With DMA’s MPS you can remove your name from DMA member prospect lists.”

You can use Catalog Choice for those catalogs you no longer wish to receive, but avoid using our service to opt out of catalogs you are not currently getting in the mail.

Sorry for the confusion.

This morning we sent the following message to all Catalog Choice members.

In just six months, Catalog Choice has become a significant consumer
voice in the direct mail industry. We could not have done it without
you and the other 730,000 people who use our service. On our blog, the
voices of several Catalog Choice members, Tracy, Yvonne, and Mary to
name a few, is also loud and clear:

“Give us the power to decide what gets in our mailbox.”

We work hard every day to achieve this goal. But we know that when you
receive an unwanted catalog in the mail, you may wonder: Is Catalog
Choice working? We confidently report that yes, Catalog Choice is
working. Our approach is showing results, for you, merchants and the
environment.

Here are some important updates and thoughts we want to share with
you:

* Nearly 200 catalog mailers are participating in Catalog Choice, and
this number grows every day. Check out our new “Bravo Merchants”
page, which gives you a convenient way to shop online by catalog
brand. In the months ahead you’ll see more mailers post their
electronic catalogs.

* We are engaged with the catalog industry at the executive level,
working with key decision-makers, the US Postal Service, and
industry associations to ensure that merchants honor your mail
preferences.

* Please use Catalog Choice for those unwanted catalogs you receive in
the mail. We established our service to be title-specific. To
decrease the chances of your name being rented, sold, or exchanged
by catalog companies, consider the Direct Marketing Association’s
Mail Preference Service at www.DMAChoice.org. This service will
remove you from DMA member prospect lists. In response to Catalog
Choice, DMA recently dropped the credit card verification and fee
requirements. Please avoid using Catalog Choice for catalogs you’ve
never received.

These are challenging financial times for merchants. There is no legal
imperative for merchants to honor your opt-out requests; we depend on
the merchant’s good faith to respect consumers’ mail preferences. Some
mailers are reluctant to remove valuable customer names from their
mailing lists without a confirmation directly from the customer. If
you are a catalog customer, some mailers may reach out to you with a
phone call, an email, or a post card. Others may send you a catalog to
see how you respond. If you buy from that catalog, it is unlikely that
the mailer will remove you from their mailing list.

We stand by our mission to reduce the mailing of unwanted catalogs.
Our approach is to continue working collaboratively with the catalog
industry to embrace voluntary measures to reduce unwanted mail by
honoring your mail preferences. This requires a relationship of trust
between Catalog Choice and mailers - and this takes time. We ask for
your continued patience and support. So stick with us and tell a
friend. The larger our voice, the more progress we can make together.

Sincerely,
The Catalog Choice Team

April 22nd is the day of global observance originated by Gaylord Nelson that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. In celebration, here are a few things that you can do to be kind to Mother Earth:

• Use sturdy cloth or mesh reusable totes instead of paper or plastic shopping bags. Paper bags are more energy and resource intensive than plastic bags, but plastic generates even more air and water pollution.
• Turn off electronics when not in use. Studies show that using Energy Star computers and other business machines can conserve up to 75% of electricity compared to standard equipment.
• Look into a different mode of transportation. Every gallon of gasoline your car burns emits about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. Try carpooling, mass transit, biking to work or school, and walking whenever possible, even just one day per week.
• If you travel a lot, think about offsetting your own carbon output. There are several cool sites: www.carbonfund.org, www.savegreenearth.com; now even Expedia and Travelocity offer offsets.
• Reduce. Ah, the first of the three R’s. If you don’t want to get a catalog that you have no interest in, sign up for Catalog Choice. If it’s another type of unwanted mail other than catalogs, check out www.dmachoice.org, or www.greendimes.org
• Re-use. Heard about “freecycling”? The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,339 groups with almost 5 million members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Membership is free. Check out www.freecycle.org for more info.
• Recycle more. Eighty-six percent of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling. To find a local recycler, check out www.Earth911.org.
• Calculate your carbon footprint. There are a number of carbon calculators out there, and ways to cut down. A cool one for kids is at www.meetthegreens.org; for adults - http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/

Most importantly – take some time today to spend a “Green Hour” outside, and really appreciate the wonder and beauty of our planet.

Happy Earth Day From Catalog Choice!

There is nothing better than having merchants inform their customers to come to Catalog Choice to set their mail preference. Today, we learned that Tools for Wellness will be printing a notice for customers in their next printed catalog. They announced their relationship with us on their blog in this post. Here is an excerpt:

The past few years has seen a greatly increased awareness of how precious our natural resources are. Greenhouse emissions, pollution from fossil fuels, and the depletion of the ozone layer are just a few examples of how were are slowly destroying the earth.

While we’ve made the switch to using recycled materials in our shipments whenever possible, we’re proud to have teamed with Catalog Choice, a free service that is a sponsored project of the Ecology Center.

We welcome any other merchants who are pointing customers to our site to let us know so that we can give you the shout out that you deserve.

As all the active Catalog Choice users know, we ask you to indicate the primary reason for making the opt-out request for each title. After several months, we have received almost 2 million responses to this questions. The results are as follows:

We know that many of you want to provide more than one reason, but that would make the results harder to interpret. So, what do the results say:

1. Lots of consumers want to help the environment by not receiving catalogs in the mail. Consumers and merchants working together can significantly reduce paper consumption when consumers specify their mail preferences and merchants honor them. This is one of the little things that we all can do to lighten our footprint on the earth.

2. Lots of catalogs are being sent to people who have no interest in the products. Honoring these requests will save money for merchants and reduce the clutter in consumers’ lives.

3. Lots of people prefer to shop online. eCommerce sites have matured and consumers are much more “internet savvy” than they were 10 years ago.

4 . Some people feel that they get too many catalogs. We have heard this over and over again and are working on a system that will allow you to “opt-down” - that is request to receive fewer mailing of a catalog rather than none at all. Stay tuned.

5. Duplicates, person not at residence and deceased (primary “other” response) are a small but important set of unwanted mail that should be straight forward to stop now that we make it easy for consumers to enter the request and merchants to honor it.

Due to an onslaught of SPAM comments on our blog, we have updated the options to only show comments from users that are already have an approved comment.  If you are new commenter on the blog, we want to hear from you. However, there will be a delay before your comments appears on the site.

This is the quote that Alan Rimm-Kaufman uses to introduce a 15 minute Q&A we conducted last week. Alan asked excellent questions and our answers are detailed on his blog. Read the entire interview here.

The interview covers the background leading up to the launch of Catalog Choice, our relationship with merchants and our vision for the future.

Thanks to Alan for conducting the interview. If you are a merchant, I highly recommend that you read it.