A new catalog came today . . . .

[Bruce Wrenn]

Several years back, I talked with an tool vendor, and asked about why so many catalogues. He said mail a new catalogue, and following week sales would spike. Spike was more than enough to cover cost of catalogue. What happens is customer gets a reminder to buy something that they had been thinking about.

[Don Sundberg]

This may be easier said than done. If a customer sees something in the catalog and then orders on-line, unless they have to enter a catalog code to get a special price, the seller may have no idea what prompted the purchase.

For folks who have been at this for a while, the catalogs may not have all that much value. I'm relatively new to woodworking, and am in the process of outfitting a small shop. I have a Rockler catalog that came with a merchandise shipment a few weeks ago, and I find it fascinating - there are all kinds of products out there that I didn't know exist! I'm not going crazy with it, but just yesterday, I ordered about $200 worth of items to solve a storage problem I'd been puzzling over for several weeks. I thought it was going to have to be a DIY solution that I really wasn't looking forward to (I have other things I want to work on).

Probably in a year or two, I won't find much new/interesting in the catalogs. But for now, they're great.

Northern tool does that with some of their catalogs. There are a few extra numbers in the catalog part number that gives them the catalog or mailing that you are ordering from, even if you are ordering online.

[Jon Nuckles]

We all butcher up trees as a hobby...

While I have never looked into it the pulp industry with its managed forests and fast-growing trees locks up a lot of carbon and returns it to the ground via paper in landfills. There is all that nasty bleching etc but as far as the environment goes paper is low on my concern level, whether it should be is lost in my ignorance.

That is something that I never considered before. I wonder if it really could be a net benefit. Sequester some carbon and have something in the landfills to dilute all the pcb's and other nasty waste? Wonder if there are any studies on this.