The Editor’s Take: Redefine Your Catalog, Don’t Replace It

Nearly a decade since e-commerce Web sites were first tooled to process orders, it’s safe to say that the role of the print catalog has largely been recast. And unlike what so many free-speaking soothsayers were forecasting in the late ’90s, Web sites didn’t replace catalogs after all. (A somewhat more modern metaphor, “I’m not dead, yet!” from Monty Python, comes to mind.) They’ve instead begun to replace call centers — or at least, reduce the need for as many CSRs and call center space — not unlike the way toll-free numbers began replacing mail orders in the 1980s.