A Short Rant About Getting Magazines About Pipes in Mail!

[blendtobac]

We are usually working three months ahead on our catalogs. In the interim, we may run into supply issues because a vendor can't deliver product in time for the catalog drop (like Casey Jones and Mark Twain). All the products have to be selected, turned over to design, the layouts have to be done, copy written, proofs have to be approved, a proofing meeting has to be convened, final changes made, all before it can go to the printer. It's a laborious task. During any given catalog cycle, I spend more than two full days writing copy and going back to edit it.

Many people just leaf through it, but for 10 to 15% of our customers, it's all they use. They don't have computers or smartphones. They look in the catalog, put their orders together, and call customer service. It's a lot of effort to accommodate a small percentage of our customers, but everybody is important and we don't want to leave them behind.
Russ

 

[saltedplug]

I'm at a point of refined rage regarding the bombardment of phone calls and trash in my email and snail mailbox from salespeople who won't take no for answer. Just now some jerk called me three times in the space of a few minutes.
First call: Only took it because I'm expecting a call. The guy wants to verify that I am who he wants to talk to and asks me my name. From the display on the phone I highly suspect I'm talking to an *sshole. So I turn it back on him and ask him his, No answer except to start into his pitch. I then invite him to perform an unnatural act with one of those huge zucchini squashes picked late in the season that had been hidden under the leaves; and hang up.

Second call from this *sswipe: I yell that he is greedy buzzard and hang up.

Third Call: I disconnect the phone.
I give anyone leave to earn a living, but this relentless importuning is more than obnoxious. so I give these greasy buzzards and internet scammers feedback. Doing business on the internet often requires personal information, but if you give it, you can be sure of their future solicitation.
Don't call me, email me or snail mail me to solicit. If you do you may get more than you bargained for.

Many people just leaf through it, but for 10 to 15% of our customers, it's all they use. They don't have computers or smartphones. They look in the catalog, put their orders together, and call customer service. It's a lot of effort to accommodate a small percentage of our customers, but everybody is important and we don't want to leave them behind.

Though I believe Russ about his intentions I also know that America has always been about the money, and I very much believe that spending some time on catalog sales yields acceptable profit, especially as it represents repeat business. Thus this seems to me to have very little to do with not leaving anyone behind and much more to do with money-making.
Also I have to wonder at the mixture of PR and genuine helpfulness in anyone who as member of a company representing them to the public.
I'd like to be spared the PR and have it be tacitly understood as the one overriding principle of businesses that yes, we are money-hungry ghouls who will take your last dime, so hold on to your wallet as we care about you only to the extent you represent future business.

 

[mso489]

I buy most of my pipe goods online, for sure. After that, it is probably my local pipe shop. I haven't ordered from a catalog in years, but I have certainly shopped and deliberated from a catalog. As for people in retail, they are like you and me. They have certain subsistent needs and a lot of discretionary wants and behave, along with the rest of us, accordingly. However, good retailers, who generally are the most successful, empathize with their clientele both as a matter of being humane, not just being a baleen whale of endless appetite, and as a matter of good business. Enlightened self-interest understands that if your customer goes away satisfied and remains that way, a business will more likely thrive. Henry Ford, who was not a warm and generous human being, figured out that if he payed his workers well, he'd sell cars, and he was correct.

 

[warren]

saltedplug: I'm betting some of those calls, the repeats, are from "boiler room" marketers who love it when the boredom is broken by an irate call receiver. It's a win-win. You get to vent and the caller gets a bit of a break from a really boring occupation knowing they pulled someone's chain. Good on you!

 

[blendtobac]

Thus this seems to me to have very little to do with not leaving anyone behind and much more to do with money-making.

Of course it does. I don't mean to imply that what we're doing by sending catalogs is being altruistic. But by doing so, we reach people who aren't tech savvy and provide a service to underserved customers.
Russ

 

[crashthegrey]

As forum members who are clearly at least minimally tech savvy, we forget that there is a huge (I use the term relatively, admittedly it is a small percent) pipe market of guys who don't even approach the internet. I was surprised to find that pipe companies still field calls from guys who just want to buy a pipe and can't find them at the local drug store anymore. I didn't read Russ' comment as some great kindness, but rather that no market should be untapped. I don't see this as a negative either. Who wouldn't want to sell to as many people as possible, so long as they don't lose money trying to get the smaller market. I don't see growing a business as money hungry or evil, either. The catalog is subtle and you can ignore it. Now if they start calling and asking if I would like to reorder the same tobacco every week I might feel some anger.

 

[aldecaker]

"I'd like to be spared the PR and have it be tacitly understood as the one overriding principle of businesses that yes, we are money-hungry ghouls who will take your last dime, so hold on to your wallet as we care about you only to the extent you represent future business."
Wow. I've actually had a much better customer service experience with P&C than that!
Two points I'd like to make here. 1) I actually appreciate having the option of calling in an order and not relying on using the internet. One of my peeves with the IRS is that they put out a bunch of horseshit about protecting your information from identity thieves, then do all but require you to do your transactions with them online, which is the single easiest way to compromise said information. Idiots.
2) With so many self-righteous nannying buttinsky nosenheimer assholes about who refuse to sell tobacco, or process transactions involving tobacco, you know, for our own good, I actually appreciate the companies left who are willing to sully their hands with tobacco. The rest of those hypocritical virtue-signaller vultures can kiss my ass.

 

[cigrmaster]

As soon as I get my catalogue from PC it goes on the back of my toilet for perusing at my leisure.I for one appreciate the time and effort PC puts into it. I especially like when they have BJ Long pipe cleaners on sale. Their prices cannot be beat.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I do enjoy getting the catalogs, but yeh, not very practical for me to actually use. The internet is so much easier. But, after perusing the catalog, I like to drop by the cardiologist office down the road and drop it in with the stacks of magazine in her lobby. ::

 

[aldecaker]

Ooh, never thought of that! That's a flash of genius, my friend!

 

[perdurabo]

Pipe Porn. That’s all it is. Doesn’t mean your gonna score. :rofl: