NOTE: There has been an update to the Email Opt-in Service. We are no longer using the anonymous email address and mail forwarding system described below. Merchants offering email opt-in through Catalog Choice have pledged to never trade your email address. Here is the update blog post.
Today, we launched the Catalog Choice Email Subscription service. Email is a great paper-free way to learn about new products and deals offered by my favorite merchants. Over 60% of Catalog Choice members are making a mail opt-out choice because they want to “help the environment” or “prefer to shop online”. We expect that many of members would prefer to receive product information via email instead of the paper catalog.
But as we all have experienced, once we provide our email address for one newsletter, it can sometimes lead to a flood of unsolicited email. As a result, we have designed our email opt-in service so that our consumer and merchant members can be assured that signing up for email news through the Catalog Choice will not generate unsolicited email messages. Only messages from your chosen merchants will be delivered to the your inbox. We guarentee it.
Our approach is simple and elegant. If you have ever used Craig’s List to sell something, you are aware of the anonymous email address they provide: example: sale-abcde-123456789@craigslist.org. Any messages sent to this address are forwarded to the poster’s real email address. Our system is similar. When you subscribe to email news through Catalog Choice, we generate a unique catalogchoice.org email address for the specific Member and Merchant relationship. Email messages sent by the merchant are delivered directly to your inbox by Catalog Choice as though the merchant directly emailed you. If any of our email addresses are inadvertently sold or traded and an email is sent to a Member from a Merchant that you have not subscribed to, our system will capture and destroy the unsolicited email before it reaches your inbox.
For merchants who have activated the email opt-in service, we provide Members a one-click email subscription on the merchant’s mail preference page. As shown below, the Email Subscription section is highlighted in green. You sign up by selecting the Subscribe button.
Once you subscribe, we generate and deliver the unique email address to the merchant. Soon thereafter, you will start receiving their email news delivered right to your inbox. The timing of the emails is dependent solely on the frequency of the Merchant’s email newsletter.
Not sure what to do with the email that has something you might want later? You can always find the email message in your Catalog Choice account. We post the email newsletter in your Activity Feed that appears on your dashboard. If you delete an email in you inbox, but days later you realize that you are ready to buy that special item, you can always come back to Catalog Choice to find it.
Since we just released this feature, it will take several weeks for merchants to activate the service for their catalogs. Look for the list of merchants offering email opt-in on your dashboard in the coming weeks.
By the way, please don’t opt-into Cheese Baseball Cards. We are for demonstration purposes only.
