My first step to fight "catalog glut."

[CTyankee]

I am inundated with catalogs in the mail. Over the years I have received more and more each successive year, yet my catalog purchases remain the same: a few catalogs, at only a few times a year. I thought this deep recession would result in fewer catalogs. I was wrong. My spouse has complained about carrying out the weekly load in the recycling bin.

So, enough is enough. I have tried an online solution to the problem and here is my report.

The online solution I tried is www.catalogchoice.org. I found it to be, for me, a cumbersome way of dealing with the problem. It requires filling in little numbers from 2 boxes on the back of your catalogs. And of course the name of the catalog. The little numbers can be difficult to read and can result in transposed numbers. Some catalogs required me to call anyway.

I just finished calling 11 catalog companies to request being taken off the mailing list permanently. It took one-half hour. 4 companies either put me on indefinite hold or told me their computer was down and to call back, which I will do. It is also a cumbersome process and the little numbers almost as hard to read out loud as they hard to get on the screen without error. 7 calls were immediately successful (hopefully). I am going for another session for the remaining 4 but I am encouraged.

This process will take up to two months before I am permanently "off" their list, I am told.
While I don't like the time spent on the phone, I prefer it to spending my online time on the computer filling in numbers.

This is just my experience. Yours may be different...

[Captain Hilts]

1. Bulk rate postage rates have actually gone down in the past 20 years. nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Send them to me. I love catalogs.

I never buy anything from anybody so they all quit sending them.

[pipi_k]

8. I love them too...

Makes it almost worth walking out to get the mail each day.

The people who send them to me keep threatening that it's probably the last one they'll send, but they never stop sending them. Not completely, anyway. They just lay off for a year or so, then send them again.

The only ones I really hate are the ones for a couple of clothing places that send out catalogs with special "clearance sales" in the middle. More than a few times I've gone online to order these items using the catalog #, and have been told they're "out of stock" or the item doesn't come in my size.

So what are they doing? Using "clearance" sales to bait and switch? If I can't get what I want, I won't buy something else from the catalog. In fact, I even told one company that I wasn't happy with being told the items I wanted were never in stock, and that they should stop sending me catalogs. They still send them anyway.

[CTyankee]

12. I wasn't timely enough to get a nice parka from LL Bean and was told

that it was sold out in every size and every color. I think they reduced inventory to keep costs down. I was pretty mad at myself for dragging my feet on something I saw that really looked good. I am stuck with an old parka with an unreliable zipper that keeps coming apart...but, hey, I've only had it for 10 years!

[CTyankee]

9. I feel that way about my travel catalogs.

There are some companies I haven't travelled with but I get quite a few from other companies. I can't get enough of their pictures of exotic places and I dream about going to some day. Sometimes I get ones from the very expensive travel companies but they are great to drool over. I have travelled with 3 different companies and had some good experiences. I am now considering a 4th (Exploritas, which used to be called Elderhostel) this fall.

[Dulcinea]

3. Contact the Direct Marketing Association.

Contact the Direct Marketing Association:

Direct Marketing Association
Mail Preference Service
P.O. Box 282
Carmel, NY 10512
212-768-7277 x1500
www.dmachoice.org

Or try this website: http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm

Good luck!

[Fridays Child]

4. I've never understood why the process should take "up to two months."

There's no reason that it can't be instantaneous. They just want to send you more catalogs, in the hope that you'll order something and put yourself back on the mailing list.

[CTyankee]

5. Well, I never buy from any of the ones I am cancelling so I pretty much know

what I am "missing." It took me long enough to figure that out...

[Cal Carpenter]

6. Actually, there may be a valid reason for this

It takes time to get huge mailings designed, printed and mailed. It is likely that their mailing list has already been sent out for the next cycle of catalogs to be printed and mailed.

We send out a few mailings a year at my work through a mail house and it is possible someone could ask to be removed from our list and still get a mailing a few weeks later. And this is on a much smaller scale.

I'm not saying this to defend junk mail - I think it sucks. But I can see why there would be a lag time here.

[CTyankee]

10. Some catalogs are not junk at all, such as Williams-Sonoma.

I love to read their catalogs, which often contain really good recipes that I cut out. But I am a real foodie so that stuff interests me. Also I can get gifts that I know my family members will appreciate...shared tastes and all that...

[sharesunited]

7. This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode "The Junk Mail."

Kramer receives one too many Pottery Barn catalogs, and he revolts by opting out of the mail delivery system entirely.

Until he is kidnapped off the street and brought before Wilford Brimley as the Postmaster General, who bullies him into resuming his mail service.

[CTyankee]

11. I have ordered some items from Pottery Barn. So I am not discontinuing them.

Some were gift items but also wallpaper for a renovated bathroom. For other household items I like Crate and Barrel, which offer good values...I wish I had a store nearby but I don't, damnit...

[The_Commonist]

13. Sweetie did that last year...

The whole catalogchoice thing.
Worked very well.
It didn't really take two months for most of them to stop.
She kept the 3 or 4 catalogs that we actually use, and now that's all we get.
Recommended...

[CrispyQ]

14. With each new one they put out, I get three identical Crate & Barrel catalogs.

One to my first initial & last name, one to my first name & last name & one to Ms. last name. All three go to the same address. All three have the same last name. C&Bs solution? I'm supposed to cut the labels of the dupe catalogs & mail them to them with a note explaining that they are dupes & to delete them from the database. Hey C&B, why don't you hire someone who knows how to query your frickin' database & delete the dupe records yourself, you cheap, stupid fucks. Maybe your cheap, overpriced shit wouldn't have to be so overpriced it you would get control of your damned database!

I've contacted the Direct Marketing address someone posted above & it did provide a temporary reprieve, but as soon as you order from a catalog, the deluge starts all over again.

[booksenkatz]

15. Reminds me of the "catalog people" from "Best in Show"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQKdEdzHnfU