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.
I’m a “I shop online” or in person CC user, so I actually don’t get many catalogs to start with. Two months ago, I tried to unsubscribe from Fossil and was refused, I’ve tried calling (I left a voicemail for the CEO) and thought maybe I was off their list. But no, I got another one from them today. I’m irked that something as simple as “No, thanks,” has rebuffed by a company who wants me to buy from them. The next step in my mini-campaign to rid myself of Fossil’s catalogs? I’m simply returning each one to their store. I suggest others who have the same problem with companies do the same.
Pottery Barn has yet to confirm my decline request, submitted in Jan., and continues to send catalogs. Don’t they realize how completely nonsensical it is to continue sending catalogs to people who don’t want them, while on the back page of their catalog they tout their support for Recycle 100, and offer a list of recycling centers on their web site? Not only that, the back page also carries the blurb “We are proud to print out catalogs entirely on Forest Stewardship Council certified paper.” What a huge disconnect between their sentiments and their actions!
My husband and I received only one single catalog during the entire past week. Hallelujah. Something is working. Thanks, merchants! Thanks, Catalog Choice!
Hi, Catalog Choice,
How do you fund this excellent web site and service to consumers? I was hoping to see this question in the FAQs but it’s not there. If using Catalog Choice is free to merchants and free to consumers, who pays you for this valuable work?
Sarah and Debra, When I write to the “hangers on” I stress “What a waste. Do you feel that continued mailings will force us to buy?” “Continued mailings wll result in a complaint to… (you fill in the blanks it’s your call). I follow through with my caution. If even a few consumers follow through, I do believe things will change.
Hubby and I have really been shifting our lifestye to green. Lighting, decreasing plastic bags to the earth friendly bag guys, watching episodes of “Living with Ed”. Do you at catalogchoice know him? He’s a great committed tree hugger! Am really leaning to green and organic. My husband and I get to go shopping twice a week. One tank of gas per month is good.
Oh, I did finally mail my letter to Senator Collins (third party mailing gal advocate that applauds DMA) and basically stressed what I have said in my long winded blogs = Don’t Share, Sell or Rent our mailing info is being ignored. Mail suppliers (and there are many others that you don’t have a clue!) need to be curbed quite a bit and catalog companies need to stop printing “Current resident” and “exchanging our info to other “safe” companies”. Delete address vs name is the way to ensure complete suppression. Last we should not have to pay or provide credit card info to those Mail Preference Services” that made the mess in the first place.
Tracy, “holiday” catalog printing has not started yet June/July, but we’re skeptical because all we got was the neighborhood stuff last week – at two addresses. You’ve been at this longer than me and done some real catalogomics. You know them catalogs are “making a list, duplicating it twice and sharing it more than twice to those not naughty or nice”…..
Mary Kay, the info that you seek is on the “About Us” page. Catalog Choice is funded through grants from several nonprofit organizations. I visited their websites when I created my Catalog Choice account back in October, and I felt very reassured.
http://www.catalogchoice.org/about
Yvonne, you are quite right about the printing cranking up in just a few months. It’s going to be interesting to see what arrives in October and November. That’s when we’ll discover how well this process really works.
Still, I can’t remember the last time that only one catalog arrived in a six-day mailing period. It might’ve been as long ago as 1991 or 1992, right before we bought our house.
I would truly prefer to avoid filing multiple complaints this autumn. So I hope the recent lack of mailings is a permanent trend. Only time will tell.
Mary Kay: Tracy has the right info on our funding. Learn more about us on the About Us page. Our funders are fantastic organizations that are putting resources to work providing this service.
Best, Chuck
If I get a catalogue marked REFUSED on Catalog Choice, I rip off the back page and mail it to the company with a note that says (1) that I will not buy from their company since they have refused my request via CC to discontinue mailing me paper catalogues and (2) to consider this a written request to remove my address from their mailings. So far, I have not received another catalogue from any of these.
I have heard that one company is stopping catalogs only for those who write in a reason, as opposed to selecting one. Just an FYI.
Member since Nov 7th 2007. Still getting a boatload of catalogs despite all my efforts daily – to curb them. BROOKSTONE. “Confirmed” Jan 23rd, yet another one arrives today making a total of 6 since confirmed, but wait, all with diffferent customer numbers. I call the company and my name was still in the database FOUR times, under four different customer numbers. She said she would delete them. Yeah. Right. This is so very very frustrating and I see absolutely no end to it. I have declined 486, have received dozens of these 486, have reported every infraction, recorded every phone call, lost my temper with companies that claim they “only bought my name” and will “continue to do so from other databases” I feel this is absolutely an excercise in futility. I have even signed up with DMA Mail preference since 2/28/08 but it does not take into consideration 10 variations of my name, and I see no impact. very depressing….
Abby, I’m abit ahead – 509 Declinations and Barron’s just sent me a catalog under another variation. Along with calling catalogs, joining CC, I’ve also been writing directly to the catalog and expressing my request to be deleted under all name variations as well as by address. After the third request, I go State Attorney General to let them know that I as a consumer is a bit harassed and madder than a wet hen. I also point out to them that the catalog companies are sharing/renting or selling my name after I have expressed that they do not do that and last, they do not honor their mail preference clause printed on their catalog.
So far, my mother lode of catalogs is been steadily decreasing. Do not have much good to say about DMA.
CC: 11 mil of catalogs is approaching.
Before discovering Catalog Choice I had made more than 70 phone calls and sent 100+ emails to stop mailings. My success rate was about 70%, until the new year when many started up again. I hope this doesn’t happen with CC.
This is a fine service to the environment and to consumers. I suppose the US Postal service is unhappy but, hey, I’d rather spend more for a first class stamp than to fail to help prevent trees being cut down and energy consumed.
Jen wrote: “I have heard that one company is stopping catalogs only for those who write in a reason, as opposed to selecting one.”
I’m confused about this. Are the merchants receiving a summarized report (as shown in the blog entry above), or are they receiving the individual answers attached to personally identifiable information? I was under the impression that it was the former.
If it’s the latter, I will consider checking the “other” box and listing details. Or maybe I’ll just be ornery and check “prefer not to answer.” I’m curious to know the percentage of respondents who’ve gone the “not answering” route. The more I think about it, the more I find it bizarre that I have to justify my lack of desire for catalogs. It’s not like I’ve ever asked for any. They just show up at my door. I should be able to say “stop sending them” and be taken seriously, with no further explanation required.
I did receive two catalogs in the mail again today, after a long and refreshing break. One came from Athleta, whom I contacted directly by phone on March 13 (over ten weeks ago) after repeatedly attempting to opt out via Catalog Choice starting last October. The other came from Smith+Noble with an altered customer number. I’ve done business with both in the past. Now I’ve got a slightly icky, invaded feeling whenever I look at my window treatments or my swimsuit.
Tracy:
We are not familiar with any companies that only honor requests from members that answer the Reason question.
In the blog post that announced this feature (http://blog.catalogchoice.org/2008/02/10/what-is-your-reason/), we indicated “As the data starts flowing in, we will share it with the merchants that have signed up for our service so that they can better understand the customers’ perspective.”.
So, yes, in the file that we provide to them, we indicate the answer for each request. This way they can properly address duplicates and mailed to person at wrong address entries.
The Merchant’s Terms of Service only permits the merchant to use the data to honor the request. The “reason” question is voluntary and you can choose to not answer it. This is why we set the default answer at “prefer not to answer”.
In terms of the % of responses:
42% of the opt-out requests include a reason code. This is in part due to the fact that millions of requests were entered before we rolled out this feature.
Of those that include a reason, 36% of the reasons are “Prefer not to answer”.
If you want to change your answer, you can go to My Choices ==> View Details for each opt-out and change the response.
If you want to change all of your responses to Prefer Not to Answer, please contact us at Support (at) Catalogchoice.org and we will change the responses for you.
Chuck
Thanks for clarifying, Chuck. Actually, I think it’s nifty that nearly two-thirds of the requests with reason codes have been checked with an answer. That’s a higher response rate than I would’ve predicted. It’s good that so many people care enough to communicate.
I’ll just leave my answers as they are, and offer apologies for yesterday’s grumpiness. I’ve found that a couple of the merchants I’ve contacted haven’t exactly been interested in knowing my reasons. That’s actually the worst feeling. Cooperation with the ones who are trying to learn more about the situation is the right attitude.