10 Statements a Catalog President May Not Want to Hear

2. You should be renting your list to other qualified companies. I’m still surprised by the number of catalogers who don’t want to rent their housefiles.

According to a leading list management firm, about 10 percent of all consumer catalog companies, and an estimated 25 percent of all business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers, don’t rent or exchange names with outside companies. If yours is a consumer catalog, there’s no reason not to rent your housefile. For b-to-b catalogers, the decision to rent may be more difficult. It’s tougher to reach b-to-b buyers; therefore your list could be more proprietary than someone else’s. But if the offer is non-competitive, why not rent?