Catalog Choice - You decide what gets in.

When convincing a direct marketer to reduce the volume of catalog mailings for the good of the environment, it is very helpful to have an alternative for them to consider.  Today, Catalog Choice is launching a digital alternative to the paper catalog, the iCatalog.  The iCatalog has been designed for the Internet and Mobile platforms from the ground up.  It is easy to use (no manual required) and designed for sharing.

The iCatalog:

1. lets you browse products from your favorite retailers in the privacy of your digital home - your computer’s desktop, your personalized homepage (iGoogle, MyYahoo, etc.), your Facebook page, or your secure Catalog Choice account.
2. lets you build a collection of your favorite retailers all in one spot
3. provides real time updates from retailers on new products, special deals and closeout sales, without inundating your email inbox
4. lets you share your discoveries with friends via email, bookmarks and messages in your favorite social network.
5. lets you go entirely paperless, saving natural resources and having fun at the same time.

Let’s take a closer look at an iCatalog from one of our launch partners, Crate&Barrel. Roll your cursor over the widget below and you’ll see a series of category tiles that correspond to the major product categories at Crate&Barrel’s website.  Click the blue arrow > to see the other categories.  It is summertime, so let’s check out what is available in the Outdoor Living category.  To make your browsing easy, each category is divided into various subcategories shown in a convenient list view.  Let’s take a look at the Bristol family of products.  Now you can quickly browse through the products by using the right or left arrows (<  >) along the product strip.  At any time, you can skip back to another category by using the breadcrumbs located in the upper right hand portion of the screen.  See something you like, click Save and a copy is saved to My List or Buy Now to go directly to the product page at www.Crateandbarrel.com.  Want to share you discovery with a friend, select Share and send a quick email with a link to your find.

The best part about the iCatalogs are that you can put them on your desktop or your personal homepage.  I am an avid iGoogle user. I visit my iGoogle page throughout the day to get headline news, weather, stock information. Now, I have set up my iCatalogs page, so I can shop from the privacy of my digital home.  Here is what my personal shopping page looks like.  You can add this set of iCatalogs to your iGoogle page by clicking here (it comes with the cityscape).

We will be building many more iCatalogs in the weeks and months ahead.  Let us know what you think and who else we should add to the iCatalog gallery.  If you are a retailer and you are interested in getting your own iCatalog, contact us at team(at)catalogchoice.org.

Proceeds generated from iCatalogs help us fund our free mail preference service.

Today, we launched Catalog Choice 2.0.  We have freshened up the user interface and enhanced the service with a variety of key features.

The site navigation has moved from the left-hand side of the site to tabs and a login strip.  The tabs are the key elements of the site - Dashboard, Find Catalogs, My Choices, Cool Catalogs, Invite Friends and Donation.

Other key elements of the navigation have been moved to the Login strip, located at the top of the page.  In the lefthand portion of the Login strip, you will find About Us, Blog, Privacy, FAQ and Contact us.  On the right side of the Login strip, there is a log out link and a link to My Profile.  The screen shot below shows you where each element of the original UI has been moved.

This change will make it straight forward for us to add in other forms of mail (beyond catalogs) to the site.  Look for this upgrade in the near future.

Still Receiving is back.  For a week, we removed the Still Receiving link from My Choices.  We heard from alot of members that they wanted it back.  We have put it back in My Choices. It works slightly different than before.  When you select Still Receiving, you will be taken to the catalog’s mail preference page where you will need to fill out the request form again.  This will allow us to use the most up to date contact method for the catalog and capture the relevant name and address information.

You can now add a new mailbox on the mail preference form.  We have made it easier to add new addresses while you are filling out the mail preference request.  The new mailbox link is right on the form so you can add a new address without leaving the page.

We have added a new mail preference delivery method that we refer to as “Form pop-up”.  While over 525 catalog titles use our secure merchant account to obtain your requests, many catalog mailers continue to ignore your request provided through our free merchant service.  We have been emailing your requests to hundreds of merchants using our anonymous email system - we never release your email address for a mail preference request.

The new method is designed for companies that use “contact us” forms on their site instead of email addresses.  When you go to set a mail preference request for one of these companies, we will open their contact us form within our site so that you can fill out the form.  If you want to keep your email private and have the company’s email response stored in your Catalog Choice account, use the anonymous email address shown on the top of the page.  When you are done filling out the form, select the “Save and Go Back” button and we will record the request in your account.  We recognize that the user experience of the form pop-up is a little jarring since a new website will suddenly show up on the page.  However, this feature is necessary to make the service work for a number of merchants.

We hope you like the site upgrades and continue to pass the word about Catalog Choice.  Together, we are making a difference in the world of direct marketing for the good of the consumer, the enviroment and the mailer.  As always, we welcome your comments below.