Receiving the Amazon catalog in the mail seemed like an industry event. The biggest online retailer in the world mailing a catalog? For many of us that grew up in the catalog world, we felt vindicated; print is powerful. But with all the muscle in the world, how do you think their catalog stacked up? Did they take advantage of the power of this media or did they miss the mark? Is there anything we can learn from their efforts? Let’s dig in and see … https://www.jschmid.com/blog/the-amazon-catalog-the-good-bad-ugly/

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company enabled Wizards of the Coast (Wizards) to supply key retailers with customized, launch-specific marketing materials. The partnership increased new product launch visibility and won the award for “Most Innovative Supplier of the Year” at the 2022 Toy and Game International Excellence (TAGIE) Awards. Wizards is a family of studios specializing in building role-playing, trading card, and digital games for all genres of players. With a focus on community, they partner with more than 6,000 local game store retailers through the Wizards Play Network (WPN) to bring products like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons to players around the world.

Retailers should prepare for record traffic on “Super Saturday” as consumers rush to complete their holiday shopping. An estimated 158.9 million consumers plan to shop on December 20, the last Saturday before Christmas, according to the annual survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. The figure is up from 157.2 million shoppers last year and surpasses the previous record of 158.5 million in 2022. (Black Friday and Super Saturday are generally regarded as the two busiest shopping days of the holiday season.) Super Saturday shoppers are expected to embrace multiple channels this year, with nearly half, or 71.6 million (45%), planning to shop both in-store and online, up from 69.5 million (44%) in 2024. For those who plan to shop a single channel, 29% will do so exclusively in-store, while 26% will shop online only.