Thump! What’s Your Take On Catalog Deliveries?

That thud at your doorstep?

Sure, it could be kids playing – or, it could be a monstrosity of a magazine. Specifically, a 3,300-page, 17-pound monstrosity.

Which got us to thinking – what are your thoughts on magazines that have ended up on your doorstep? Does anyone order from catalogs anymore? Or look at them? What do you do with them when you get them?
Also, apparently along with the hefty Restoration Hardware tome came a one-page “sustainability initiative” with the delivery – which Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported “detailed several ways in which the company was minimizing environmental harm, including using ‘forest certified’ paper and acquiring carbon offsets to cancel out emissions from shipping the catalogs.”

We know we’re singling out Restoration Hardware here, but this most recent news about such a massive delivery to millions of households led to us wondering about these kinds of deliveries and how truly useful or, of course, environmentally friendly they are.

The company did tell Bloomberg BusinessWeek that it’s planning to mail such a publication once a year – which the company said is a significant decrease from past years.

What are your thoughts? Are there business owners out there who have found this kind of outreach useful? Or do you use primarily the internet to reach customers?