Re: news of the day: t-shirts

Well, even if it only cost 10 cents to send a catalog, if you send
out 500,000 of them, that's 50 grand; not peanuts.  And 4-color
printing is expensive as all get out - yes, quantity prices are
lower, but it's still not what I consider inexpensive.

I agree with you - and every thing I've ever read about marketing
agrees - it's smarter to send to a really targeted audience than
blanket the world...but, as I said in my reply to Bonnie, must be
working for these companies or they wouldn't keep doing it all the
time.

I do know the cost of doing it has to be passed on to the consumer in
some way - maybe only pennies on each item sold, but something is
added somewhere.  Take, for instance, the difference in price of
plants from Wayside and from smaller nurseries selling the identical
plant, who do not put out glossy color catalogs that go to every
person on the planet forever...a dollar or $5 a plant pays for that
catalog...and who pays that extra for the plant?  Wayside buys all
their stuff in as far as I know; they don't grow anything anymore and
they buy from the same wholesalers as everybody else for probably the
same wholesale price....so diff. in price of plant has to be for
something other than the cost of the plant, pot and space/care  it
takes before sale.  I've always figured it pays for those
catalogs:-)...well and also their refund policy.  They are quick to
pay refunds, but I figure they had to do that because they screw up
so many orders and send so many DOA plants out.  If they didn't have
that fast refund policy, they'd go out of business:-)  

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
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----------
> From: kmrsy@comcast.net
> 
> The bulk rates that I've paid for small mass mailings, as I recall,
can
> be as little as 16 cents for a letter when I have a min qty to a
> specific zipcode. But I think catalogues are on a different, lower,
> rate.
> 
> Still, I agree that it's not just the postage. The cost of printing
a
> catalogue, of course will be less per catalogue when larger
quantities
> are printed, but only to a point. I can get 5000 postcards printed
for
> $455 (.911 ea), but 20,000 printed for $1355 (.068 ea) But I think
it is
> smarter to spend the $455 on good prospects instead of blanketing
the
> universe with trash.

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