Cataloguers Confident About Christmas

Christmas catalog marketers say that their sales have continued to climb, but at least one survey suggests that consumers may be relying less on catalogs for their Christmas shopping. The survey, undertaken in December 1989 by Home Testing Institute, involved 30,000 households nationwide. Of the respondents, 36% indicated that they intend to use catalogs less than they had in 1988. Home Testing Institute hypothesized a number of reasons for this disenchantment, including: 1. deep discounting by retailers, 2. the enormous flood of catalogs, 3. the inconvenience of returning merchandise by mail, and 4. the frequency with which popular items are back ordered. However, Jay Walker of Catalog Media Corp. dismisses the Home Testing Institute survey as a natural fluctuation in a continuing overall upward trend. Duncan Muir of J. C. Penney Co. Inc. believes that there are too many catalogs and that there will be a shakeout.