A Chat with Arnie Zaslow, executive vice president, ATD American Co.

CS: What made you realize your customers would be using the Web?
AZ: We started to speak with customers, as we always do. We have a squad that contacts customers to ask questions, survey-type questions, asking them what they want. We started getting responses with increasing frequency that they would like to see a Web site where they could check out all of our product and prices without having to go through a print catalog, although I’m a strong proponent of the idea that the catalog and Web site work hand-in-hand. The print catalog generates interest on the Web site, and I think the Web site generates interest in the catalog. The customer wants to have a hard copy as well. And we’ve increased the size of our catalogs to a point where they have much greater retention value than they used to. I can remember not too long ago when we would send out 64-page, saddle-stitched catalogs. Today we send out 200-page, perfect-bound catalogs. So the retention value of those book is much greater than it used to be.