What’s In Your Catalog’s Future?

Say Goodbye to the Post Office

Second, distribution of printed catalogs will, I believe, be accomplished by alternative services to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The monolithic weight of the nonproductive union and entrenched bureaucracy of the USPS will doubtlessly cause its extensive mutation or privatization. In its place, at least as far as catalog delivery goes, will be a fresh, private, efficient and innovative service. It will meet the needs of catalogers and the capabilities of their carefully-constructed consumer databases, so catalogers can create customers’ self-determined printed catalog selections. Those catalog companies that carefully evaluate the next non-postal incarnation of catalog distribution will be the early adaptors that will lead the evolution of the non-USPS catalog future. I see the day when catalog owners will no longer have a silent partner they cannot control.