Against the 'green?'.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: STRATEGY - Brief article

Retailers are getting a bad rap for sending out thousands of wasted catalogs (and often duplicates) to the same household, wrong addresses, etc. However, some retailers are using technology solutions to prevent duplicate mailings, wrongly addressed entries and outright bogus online requests.

A new Web service says it provides "real-time tools that provide businesses and mail-order houses with the ability to keep customer lists current," by matching them to the weekly updated USPA® NCOALink change-of-address file.

Some of the startling statistics below may be of interest to businesses that mail catalogs:

* More than 8 million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.

* Nearly half of the planet's original forest cover is gone today as forests have effectively...