Computer cataloger Multiple Zones International’s transition from mail order to multi-channel is a glimpse of how cataloging will look in years to come

By Melissa Sepos

The cost to version a print catalog to such a detailed level is immense compared to an online catalog, and off-line products cannot be updated to reflect current pricing or carry all of the company’s 100,000 SKUs.

“From an analytical point of view, there is a much higher cost to do versioning in print, especially with e-marketing, [where we can] combine a lot of customer choices ... the customer’s data, along with their own transaction data,” says Savitch. “The technology is out there to make the manual versioning process a more automated one.”