The Electronic Catalog: Drilling Down Beyond Channel Mar 1, 2001 12:00 PM
, Moira Cotlier
JobZone
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Many catalogers, particularly business-to-business marketers, not
only seek to allocate sales by channel, but also by individual
consumer.
“B-to-b catalogers have a great asset in that they enjoy
pass-along among employees that consumer catalogers may not experience
in mailing to a home,” says Mary Ann Kleinfelter, vice president
of sales and marketing for educational products cataloger Delta
Education. “But we have a tremendous challenge inherent in that
pass-along: Who is the real buyer — the purchasing agent who
placed the order, or the worker who specified it?”
“We may mail to a director of physical therapy,” notes
Bill Demas, executive vice president of Anatomical Chart Co., a
cataloger of medical charts and educational supplies, “but the
orders might come from the purchasing department.”
What's more, in the course of being passed along, pages may be torn
out or covers ripped off — and with them, the source code that
enables the catalogers to allocate the sale accurately. Demas says that
doctors, for instance, frequently tear out the page for the item they
want the office managers to order. “So capturing the source code
is a challenge, since we don't list the source code on each catalog
page.” Skokie, IL-based Anatomical avoids this obstacle by
assigning such orders a bulk media code. “We do our best on the
phone to capture our customer type,” Demas says, “and in
this case we'll code the buyer as a doctor and give him a bulk media
code.”
As for Web sales, Anatomical's site doesn't even ask buyers if they
were directed to the site by the print catalog. “We count all
online sales as Web sales,” Demas says, regardless of where the
sale might have originated.
Katie Muldoon, president of catalog consultancy Muldoon & Baer,
says sourcing problems are not uncommon among b-to-b catalogers:
“Addresses are not always accurate, so the catalog goes to the
wrong person in the first place.” What's more, she says, many
purchase orders come in without source codes, which makes it even more
difficult to correctly allocate the sale.
