Cut Costs and Keep Creative

If the lure of approximately 35 percent in postage savings (when mailed at the 5-digit, enhanced presort rate) compels you to make this switch, beware. By mid-2008, the postage loophole, which enables catalogs that conform to the slim-jim size to gain substantial postage savings, may be closing. So if you change formats, your savings may only be for the short term.

A less dramatic format change is to adjust your catalog’s trim size. With co-mailing becoming more of a solution for catalogs, there has been a shift to a standardized size of 8 inches by 10 inches (down from 83⁄8 inches by 101⁄2 inches, a short cutoff size that shifted years ago from the long cutoff size of 83⁄8 inches by 107⁄8 inches). This move can save dollars by using less paper, which results in your catalog weighing less and costing you less in postage. At the same time, it opens the door for co-mailing savings. Best of all, the size difference usually isn’t noticeable.

There’s a downside to any format change, however, in the form of increased creative costs. Revising and resizing means pages need to be redesigned, copy must be cut, and digital mechanicals have to be revised. In some cases, you’ll have to take format-appropriate photography.

Cut Pages Meticulously
The ratio of products to pages is critically important to a catalog’s financial success. But the fit has to be perfect, and you may not be able to force all your products into a smaller book while effectively maintaining your selling space.

The density of your pages is very recognizable to the consumer. So if you reduce your page count and try to cram more items onto the remaining pages, customers probably will react negatively. Likewise, cutting merchandise can sabotage your book’s revenue. Cutting pages and products is like shrinking the size of your physical store, which only means less revenue.