Amazon Tests Catalog Search Service

Lois Boyle, partner and chief creative officer at catalog consultancy J. Schmid and Associates, thinks catalogers will benefit immensely from the exposure the Amazon search service gives them—perhaps even more so in the future if catalogers can collect the names of those customers who came directly from Amazon. However, she admits she's baffled about Amazon's motivations for the project, "unless keeping people coming back to the site will boost their own sales," she says. Boyle added that she "can't imagine [Amazon] doing this as a service" because of the effort required to scan and code each catalog page, and wonders if the company intends to make the search a subscription-only program in the future.