A catalog merchant (catalogue merchant in British English) is a form of retailing. The typical merchant sells a wide variety of household and personal products, with many emphasizing jewelry. Unlike a self-serve retail store, most of the items are not displayed; customers select the products from printed catalogs in the store and filled out an order form. The order is brought to the sales counter, where a clerk retrieves the items from the warehouse area to a payment and checkout station.
Contents |
Purpose
The catalog merchant has generally lower prices than other retailers and lower overhead expenses due to the smaller size of store and lack of large showroom space.
There are a few key benefits to this approach. By operating as an in-store catalog sales center, it could be exempt from the "Resale price maintenance" policy of the manufacturers, which can force conventional retailers to charge a minimum sales price to prevent price-cutting competition.
The catalog showroom approach also reduces the risk of merchandise theft (known in the industry as shrinkage) and also enables customers to shop without the inconvenience of physically dragging their purchases throughout the store. The downside to this approach was that it may require the customers to give their names, addresses, and phone numbers whenever an order is placed.
Countries
United States
Catalog merchants in the United States have declined since 1980, in favor of chain discounters, big box stores, and internet shopping.
The repeal of the resale price maintenance sanctioning law in 1980 meant that chain discounters such as Wal-Mart, KMart could set and change prices at will, in a more consumer- friendly environment where the customer can examine the goods and confirm availability before approaching sales staff. As a result, this retail sector went into decline in the 1980s. As big box stores and internet shopping became increasingly popular in the 1990s, the decline of the catalog merchant business accelerated.
Many companies in recent years have moved away from relying solely on catalog sales, augmenting them with on-line sales or direct retail. The move toward on-line sales includes long-established department store chains such as Sears and JCPenney that relied heavily on catalog sales. However, many long-established catalog merchants have gone out of business in recent years including Best Products, Brendle's, Ellman's, KeyMid, Rink's, Service Merchandise, Sterling Jewelry & Distributing Company and Consumers Distributing.
However Houston Jewelry & Distributing Company, a onetime division of Sterling Jewelry & Distributing Company in Houston, successfully retooled the company in 1993 as a traditional jewelry and "fine gift" store called Houston Jewelry, which offered lower pricing on luxury products. It is widely believed by the trade press, as noted in the June 1999 issue of JCK, Jewelers Keystone Circular Magazine, that this was the only successful transformation of a catalog showroom concept into a jewelry & fine gift store. Houston Jewelry's transformation has been so successful, that in 2008 and 2009 they were honor as one of "America's Best Jewelers" by National Jeweler Magazine. In 2008, the State of Texas awarded Houston Jewelry a "Texas Treasure Award" for being one of the oldest business in Texas.
United Kingdom
 |
This section requires expansion. |
In the United Kingdom, the largest general goods retailer is Argos, a catalog merchant.
Resources
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
