Catalogs and Mobile Phone Bills

Mobile phone bills are not cheap.

It's common for folks to spend $100 a month.

Let's pretend you are a 29 year old (hint, Jasmine) - earning $50,000 a year, paying $12,000 a year in taxes and $12,000 a year on housing and $5,000 a year on food and $5,000 a year on health care and $10,000 a year on associated utilities and various necessary expenses (you need tissues and gas for the car, right?).

I know, a gross oversimplification.

This leaves you with $500 a month, +/-, for everything else.

Well, that $100 a month on the mobile phone bill is essential.

In other words, of the paltry $500 a month left to have any sort of fun, 20% is going to a mobile device.

You're gonna get every ounce of utility possible out of that mobile device, aren't you? If you need to buy something, where are you going to turn? The device, of course.

Now, in the #omnichannel playbook, you have to have a catalog that drives this broke consumer to the website, which drives the customer online for price comparisons, which drives the customer back to the website, which causes the customer to find something inexpensive yet interesting.

And we wonder why the younger customer doesn't buy from catalogs? The medium is not as relevant as a handheld computer with non-stop access to every piece of information ever created. After paying bribes (Google, Affiliates, Facebook, Paper, Postage, Printing), there's no profit left for the merchant.

No profit for the merchant.

No money for the customer to spend.

We need to cut way, way back on unprofitable circulation to younger customers. Target those expensive ad dollars to customers who can afford to care. Craft a different strategy for Jasmine.