Dear Catalog CEOs: We Have Nothing New To Say

Dear Catalog CEOs:

I recently overheard this comment from one of your peers.

• "Honestly, the merchandise assortment is old.  We have nothing new to say to our customers that they don't already know about the merchandise assortment."

Oh boy.

There are at least two things to consider here.

1. To your new customers, everything is new ... they don't know anything yet.  If your annual retention rate is under 40%, then you are constantly speaking to new customers, so you have to repeat a message that you believe is old and stale.
2. If you don't have anything new to say, find a marketer / copywriter / merchant / blogger, and let them do the speaking for you!!  Somebody in your organization has passion for the product, let them exude passion!

If you are out of great things to say about your products, why should the customer care?