Catalog Choice - You decide what gets in.

We are nine months into our odyssey to give consumers choice over what comes in their mailbox.  Here is where we stand:

• Consumers trust our service and have demonstrated a significant demand for a free and easy to use way to set their catalog mail preference.  Almost 950,000 households have set up an account and opted-out of over 12 million catalog titles.
• Merchants are steadily coming around to accepting requests generated from our service.  There are over 250 merchants who have activated their merchant accounts and many others have received their opt-out file and are working on the process.  In the past two weeks, we have delivered over 1.5 million opt out requests to several large merchants.  More big wins are on the way.
• The DMA continues to persuade merchants to not work with us, introducing unnecessary tension into our merchant outreach efforts.  Here is their most recent letter to merchants.  This was sent out one hour after I finished a panel discussion on Do Not Mail with two merchants, USPS and the DMA.  Without this resistance from the Association, I know we would have made more progress to date.  But rest assured we are prevailing despite their propaganda.  By the way – we do not and will not rent or sell any member’s name.   We have made this clear on many occassions.
• Frustration with unwanted catalogs still abounds. Despite your disappointment when you open your mailbox,  your continued support in promoting the service with friends and words of encouragement on the blog and to customer service keep us rolling on our mission.
• We are working on several fronts to improve our service:

1. We are making it easier for consumers to support the merchants who are honor your mail preference requests by adding product categories and electronic catalogs to Bravo Merchants.
2. We are making it easier for merchants to honor requests by automating the process with their Service Bureaus.
3. We are meeting everyone’s desire for more choice by developing a process whereby merchants can offer less frequent catalog mailings – referred to as “opt-down” or mail frequency.  Look for more on this topic in the coming weeks.
4. We are spending endless hours meeting with executives throughout the mail industry to build trust and partnerships so that your requests will be honored.

Thanks for your continued support.

Catalog Choice Team