July 1, 2001
A beleaguered catalog industry has begun the painful process of paying the piper for the excesses of the 1990s. Collectively, we woke up in the fourth quarter of 2000 to the first sobering reality check in nearly a decade—namely, slower growth. Today, nothing less than corporate profitability and business survival are at stake. Another unpleasant jolt to our euphoria arrived earlier this year in the form of an average 17-percent, bulk-rate postage hike. The ink had barely dried when yet another round of postal hikes was announced. Escalating fuel prices ignited a troubling round of rising shipping costs. And mounting paper prices
