Well hopefully next Christmas I won’t be getting so many catalogs because just before Christmas I found a website called Catalog Choice. Catalog Choice is a free service that allows you to opt-out of getting paper catalogs in the mail. To use Catalog Choice, you’ll need to create an on-line account. You’ll also need copies of the catalogs you want to opt-out from because you’ll need your customer number off the back.

Once I had my account set up it was easy to decline the catalogs I didn’t want to get any longer. It takes some time (up to ten weeks) for the merchants to take you off their mailing lists, but if after that time period, you still continue to receive declined catalogs, you can report the infraction to Catalog Choice and they will follow up with the merchant.

One great feature of the service is they allow you to list multiple addresses and names. This was good for us because some catalogs came to me and some to Dale. Some to the home address and some to the PO Box. Having the actual catalog in front of us when opting-out insured we had the right name, address and customer number to enter.

As I write this, I’m reading the blog over at Catalog Choice and see that they were actually featured on the Today Show 2 days ago. What a coincidence! I’ve had links to Catalog Choice on some of my other sites for several months and have been meaning to write this article for a couple days now, so I’m sorry I missed the show. I’m overjoyed that the site is gaining so much publicity. 57,000 new members signed up on January 25th as a direct result of the Today Show. It shows that people are really wanting to clean out their mailboxes and help reduce waste. There are now over 500,000 people enrolled who are opting out of almost 6 million catalogs! Cutting down on catalog waste is good for everyone, including the merchants by lowering their costs of distribution and helping them better target their marketing.

So What’s the Take Away?

“The mission of Catalog Choice is to reduce the number of repeat and unsolicited catalog mailings, and to promote the adoption of sustainable industry best practices. We aim to accomplish this by freely providing the Catalog Choice services to both consumers and businesses. Consumers can indicate which catalogs they no longer wish to receive, and businesses can receive a list of consumers no longer wanting to receive their catalogs.” – Catalog Choice mission statement

So what do you think? Are you going to enroll at Catalog Choice? Have you already enrolled? We’d like to hear your comments. I think it’s too early to tell if it’s working for me yet since it hasn’t yet been 10 weeks. Most of my declined catalogs are still showing as unconfirmed, but a few are confirmed. At least none are refused!