Our friend Jonny Hal has a great blog post that documents his success in eliminating unwanted mail in this creative blog post.  It is an entertaining read.

We last reported the addition of the Williams-Sonoma and Orchard Brands families of catalogs to Catalog Choice in September.  During the month of October, an array of merchants have signed up and will now be honoring your mail preference request.  Forgive them if another catalog arrives and you come to your account to re-enter your request.  They have just recently confirmed the receipt of your request and will be adding it to their systems.

This morning I read the New York Times Saturday Interview with Mike Critelli, Pitney Bowes Executive Chairman.  The title of the interview is In Defense of that Daily Visitor, Unsolicited Mail.  You can read the entire interview here.  As I read this Q&A article, it became clear that Mike is not expressing views consistent with 21st century realities.  Mike’s defense of unsolicited mail is essentially that alternative forms of marketing, such as email, also consume natural resources.  Where I come from, two wrongs don’t make a right.  Where the Catalog Choice community comes from, respecting customers’ mail preferences are paramount.

I was especially taken back by Mike’s answer to the following question:

Q. Do you think some Americans like to get unsolicited mail?

A. Absolutely. Americans have been buying from catalogs for over a century. The original unsolicited catalogs that people got, particularly in rural areas, were from Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and J. C. Penney. They started the direct mail industry over a century ago.

Mike - in just one year over 1 million consumers have made over 14 million requests for unwanted catalogs to no longer be mailed to them here at Catalog Choice.  Mike has is own blog where you can let him know your opinion on this topic.  His blog is titled Open Mike.  Head on over to Mike’s blog to share your views on the topic of unsolicted mail.

I expect that you get frustrated when you pick up the daily mail and find unwanted catalogs you have requested to no longer receive at Catalog Choice.  We live your frustration. Our team works tirelessly everyday to get more merchants on-board with our free secure mail preference service.

We know the system is far from perfect. But it is significantly better than what existed a year ago. If you want background on exactly how difficult it is to get off a mailing list, head on over Jonny Hal’s Off the List blog. Make sure you watch this video, it documents the state of the art as of 2007.

So, what should you do with your frustration?  You can focus it on the companies that keep on sending you unwanted catalogs or you can direct it to us, the non-profit working to give consumers the ability to choose what enters their mailbox.

If you believe that respecting the customer’s choice is paramount, then we need you to join us to let the non-participating companies know that you want them to honor your request entered in your Catalog Choice account. We have added phone numbers for every non-participating merchant.  If you have a free moment, give them a call. Your efforts will help our team who are on the phone with merchants every day, your fellow Catalog Choice members and those who will join the service in the future.

The Catalog Choice community is effectively changing the way mail preference requests are handled throughout the United States. Over 300 merchants are using our service, the DMA has launched a brand new mail preference service, DMAchoice.org, and more merchants are adding mail preference forms to their websites. A major catalog trade association has endorsed us, leading companies are speaking out in support of our service, and the DMA has stopped their campaign against us.

But our job is far from done and we need your support to carryout the mission. Follow the example of fellow Catalog Choice members like Julie who only shops with Participating Merchants, or Yvonne and Tracy who have both been long-time supporters of our service and work continuously to stop unwanted mail, or Sue who uses My Choices to manage her 240 catalogs opt-out requests, of which she says over 180 no longer arrive.

Together, we are improving the direct mail world so consumers can have a choice. This is not a simple, short-term initiative. It requires time, patience and your continued support.

Many catalog mailers and consumers have told us that they would love to have the option to receive fewer mailings of a specific catalog rather than opt-out entirely. 

That makes perfect sense - we all love our dimmer switch rather than the old fashioned on-off switch.  So, we talked to as many merchants as possible in an effort to figure out a process for offering “frequency” choices to consumers.  We concluded that, unlike that handy dimmer switch that works everywhere,  there was not a one-size fits all program for mail frequency.  As a result, we developed a system that allows the participating company to define the frequency choices that makes sense for their catalog.  So don’t be surprised when you go to set you mail preference and you get the following choices:

Now when you go to My Choices, we created a way to separate the catalogs you do not want in the mail from those that you do want.  You can toggle back and forth between your selections with ease.  If you want to change your selection, simply select View Details for a Confirmed catalog and update your mail preference.  While over 300 catalogs are confirmed participants right now, many have not set their mail frequency options yet.

We think it is really cool when catalog merchants participate in our service and support American’s desire for a centralized site to manage catalog mailings.  So, we have also made it easier to filter through the list of 300+ catalogs that are honoring mail preferences so that you can show your support by visiting their online store.  We call this area of our site “Cool Catalogs“.  So head on over to that page this holiday season and start your shopping with a company that puts the consumer’s choice first.

We hope that our members like the new features and that many more companies will activate their free account to honor requests being entered at Catalog Choice now that your company can offer mail frequency choices to consumers.

Last month Catalog Choice signed up for an innovative service that will offset the carbon impacts associated with our website.  The service, CO2Stats, calculates the greenhouse gas footprint of visits to your site, based on locations of your visitors and servers, computer types, window and monitor sizes, local fuel mixes, download sizes and times.  At the end of every month, CO2Stats will purchase Green-E certified Renewable Energy Certificates to offset our site’s CO2 footprint. Users can inspect our certificates and other environmental statistics by clicking on our CO2Stats badge.

We’ll be adding badge to our main site shortly.  If you want one for your site, head on over to CO2Stats and sign up.  For those of you interested in the details, here is how the service works: