24 MARCH 2020
Dispatches MATERIAL WORLD
email-marketing services
require retailers to gain con-
sent from recipients. That’s
partly because sending mar-
keting emails without permis-
sion is illegal in some countries
and partly because it’s against
the rules of some internet-
and email-service providers—
businesses risk having every-
thing they send algorithmically
disregarded as spam.
Although the average cata-
log costs about a dollar per copy
to produce and ship, compared
with pennies per email, Krep-
sik says that they’re particu-
larly effective at prompting
large purchases (up to twice
as expensive as those made by
noncatalog shoppers) and lur-
ing back customers after first
purchases. Higher receipts and
consumer loyalty are exactly
what a plucky upstart needs to
become a standard-bearer—or
for a long-standing business to
fight back against Amazon.
The story of the Ver-
mont Country Store is the
opposite of the now-familiar
cautionary tales of businesses
too slow to cater to the desires
of youth. “We were still print-
ing a black-and-white catalog
in 2000,” says Eliot Orton,
one of three brothers who
now own the business started
by their grandfather in 1946.
“We slowly migrated to color,
even doing a watercolor treat-
ment to the sketches we were
doing at the time.” The store’s
catalog, sent seasonally, with
special editions for the holi-
days, is now full of color pho-
tography, but no one would
mistake it for a concession to
American marketers’ obsession
with youth. Its comfy night-
gowns, flannel bed linens, and
old-school candies and baked
goods are straight out of a Nor-
man Rockwell fantasia.
Not only does the com-
pany curate its products for
an older demographic, but
the structure of its business,
which still allows people to
order by phone or send in a
form with a check, could have
easily become a thing of the
past. A substantial number of
Americans, however, still lack
reliable high-speed internet or
credit services, and many olderpeople just don’t trust the inter-
net, a suspicion that’s arguably
justified. “We spent the last 30
years agonizing over whether
there was a cliff, and whether
the audience we were serving
would evaporate and not be
replaced,” Cabot Orton says.
But new customers keep aging
into the store’s market. You
don’t have to be very old, after
all, to grow tired of trying to
keep up with technology—
just ask any 30-something
American still trying to decide
whether to download TikTok.
No one has to be taught how to
flip through a catalog.
Even if the majority of a
company’s orders are made
online, as the Vermont Coun-
try Store’s now are, catalogs
provide an important oppor-
tunity for businesses whose
appeal goes beyond super-fast
service at super-low prices. Thestore is a family business whose
employees, from photogra-
phers to warehouse workers, all
live nearby. The brothers often
turn up in the catalog, mod-
eling plaid shirts, and every-
one picks up shifts answering
phones during the busy holiday
season. This is a company that
constantly reminds you that
it’s still possible to buy some
of what you need from people
who aren’t trying to eliminate
competitors or extract every
last bit of value from employ-
ees or colonize the moon. That
kind of context is lost entirely
when a nightgown appears in
Google’s shopping tab, along-
side less expensive alternatives
from Walmart.A host of internet-first
start-ups, such as the makeup
brand Glossier and the mens-
wear company Bonobos, have
boarded the catalog band-
wagon in the past decade.
These companies had thrived
on direct-to-consumer web-
sites and social-media adver-
tising but needed new strate-
gies to make a more complete
case for their business.
That’s especially true for
a very modern subgenre of
company that seeks to attract
socially conscious young peo-
ple with a mix of activism,
philanthropy, and sales. The
brand Cotopaxi, which uses
recycled materials to make
things like backpacks and
jackets, is among them. The
outdoor-gear purveyor shoots
its catalogs in adventure-travel
spots in conjunction with
local non profits, including,
most recently, Escuela Nueva,
which provides education to
indigenous people and refu-
gees in South America. The
organizations receive modest
grants from Cotopaxi, as well
as coverage in the company’scatalog and the rights to use
the material for their own
fundraising. “It’s hard to tell
that story over [social media]
sometimes,” says Annie Agle,
Cotopaxi’s director of brand
and impact. “It can feel cal-
lous; there’s not a lot of time,
and you’re fighting for atten-
tion.” Catalogs, in their own
way, are antiviral—they’re not
easily shared, and they offer
depth and explanation. If the
catalogs in your mailbox have
started to look more like mag-
azines, that’s why.
Still, consumers wor-
ried about waste and climate
change might bristle at receiv-
ing paper mail when they
could be reached digitally.
Agle says she understands
that concern, but notes that
upwards of 90 percent of an
apparel company’s carbon
footprint happens before a
garment is sewn, because the
manufacture and transporta-
tion of textiles is extremely
expensive and wasteful. So
that, she says, is where most
of Cotopaxi’s efforts at waste
reduction have gone.
Even if paper sent through
the mail is an imperfect
medium, it still might be the
best way for independent busi-
nesses to avoid getting sucked
into the Amazon-Google-
Facebook vortex—and for
internet-weary consumers to
avoid seeing the whole world
through the filters of the Big
Three’s algorithms. “Some-
thing we talk about a lot is
data- privacy issues,” Agle says.
“Obviously electronic adver-
tising is more sustainable,
but it’s not necessarily better
for society.”Amanda Mull is a staff writer
at The Atlantic.“WE SPENT THE
LAST 30 YEARS
AGONIZING
OV ER W HETHER
THERE WAS
A CLIFF, AND
WHETHER THE
AUDIENCE W E
WERE SERVING
WOULD
EVAPORATE.”