Weblog Entry - 04/28/2003: "catalogs"

04/28/2003 Entry: catalogs

I've done a fair bit of shopping on the web for remodelling and decorating my new house. As a result, Uphill gets several new paper catalogs in the mail every day. For a time, I was content to store catalogs in the bathroom, aging out old ones as we received new ones; the goal was to keep one and only one catalog from each merchant. This was all well and good until we starting getting catalogs from enough different merchants that the bathroom pile got too big for me to carry by myself. I've decided that I'm happy to not actually receive catalogs from places I do not deem fun bathroom reading.

So, last Thursday I did a tiny experiment. The procedure: Find the phone number on each catalog, and find the web page address. Dial the phone number and pull up the web page. While I was listening to rings, on hold, and/or navigating audio menus, try to find directions on their website for removing myself from the catalog. I began this with a suspicion that mail-order catalogs haven't figured out that someone might want to use their website in order to remove themselves from a paper mailing list; I did not succeed in proving this to myself.

The results...

Sharper Image.
They left me on hold for several minutes; much longer than I'm comfortable with. Their website was slow-loading and the customer service pages were not forthcoming about how one might get off their mailing list using their website, though they helpfully put their phone number in the title of their main page. They were, however, perfectly happy to remove me from their list once I finally got to talk to a human being. They asked why I wanted off; I just responded "not interested."

Caswell-Massey.
A human being answered the phone immediately. The rep spent a lot of time saying "wait a minute," though, so I had plenty of time to peruse their website. I gave her my name and address, and then she said, "okay, wait while I type this in" -- I think she may have hand-transcribed my information with a pen, first. Their website, helpfully, has a picture of the current catalog on the 'catalog request' page, but information about how to stop receiving it was buried in the 'choice/opt-out' section of their website's privacy policy.

Domestications.
I found their "How do I get my name removed from your mailing list?" FAQ before their customer service phone had even rung twice. They gave an email address and detailed directions about what information they needed, so I hung up and sent them email. As they're a place I've ordered from before and will probably order from again, I made sure to mention that I liked their website and just didn't want the paper anymore. They're my favorite home-store website. Their larger-size product pictures are the crispest, largest, most useful product images I've ever seen. Too bad about their tacky lamp selection.

Brylane Home.
While listening to their voice-menu's two-and-only-two options, "press one for checking on status...two for placing an order..." I found a different phone number on their website's "request a catalog" page for catalog removal, so I hung up and called the second number...which put me into the same exact voicemail system. Sigh. I stayed on the line for a rep, paging through the catalog, and noticed things I thought I might one day buy, but decided to cancel the catalog anyway and purchase off their website if I found I really needed something they sell. The very-fast-talking representative took my customer number and removed me from their list, but didn't seem to interested when I insisted on telling her that I preferred to order from their website rather than just cancelling because I was uninterested. Wouldn't you think that was useful market data to collect?

This is a fun game! I wonder what catalogs will come in today's mail...

Posted by sev @ 03:43 PM PST |

insert witty comment here