STRICTLY BUSINESS: CATALOGS, INTERNET BOOSTS TO U.S. RETAIL ECONOMY

Four more catalogs were in the day's mail on Nov. 7.

The new catalogs went from the mailbox to the growing mound of previously delivered catalogs stacked on the kitchen counter.

With the delivery of a dozen or so additional catalogs over the past few days, our stack teeters at about 1 1/2 feet high, and I'm sure there are more to come.

So far, we have more than a 100 gift catalogs. These range from the Popcorn Factory's "Great Eats and Treats" to the Celebration Fantastic and its Limoges boxes to Pedigrees, a catalog for pampered pooches that is loaded with everything from doggie St. Francis Medallions to faux pearl dog collars.

With only 31 more shopping days until Christmas, browsing the catalogs could be a full-time job.

Catalogs and more catalogs. Everyone wants to capture the armchair shopper.

Catalogs do provide a big boost to the nation's economy, accounting for about 10 percent of annual general merchandise sales.

Overall, mail order and catalog sales total more than $290 billion a year.

This all translates into 10.8 percent of general merchandise; 3.8 percent of retail sales, which are expected at just over $2 trillion this year; and 2 percent of consumer service sales.

On a per capita basis, Americans spend $550 in catalog sales a year. Specialty mail order vendors get the lion's share of the catalog dollar (some 83 percent) than do general merchandising companies.

There was a time when catalog shopping was pretty much limited to the "Big Book."

The big book was the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, which contained color illustrations in its 1,500 pages. Sometimes called the "Wish Book," the 3-inch-thick catalog became history in 1993.

Although Sears, Spiegel, JCPenney and the Montgomery Wards Catalog may be among the best known catalogs, the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog is the longest continually published catalog in America.

The first Hammacher Schlemmer catalog was in 1881, six years prior to Sears, and only 500 of the publications were sent out.

Today, the Fairfield, Ohio, company sends out a dozen catalog editions every year to Hammacher customers throughout the world, offering a variety of gifts for the entire family with many geared to the "person who has everything."

One of those for-the-person-who-has-everything gifts is a full-size, fully functional carousel that seats 20 on prancing horses and inside decorated chariots. Because the carousel is hand-built, it requires five months of construction from the date of order, so you're actually too late for Christmas this year.

And you need a 24-foot space somewhere to place the carousel. It includes six jumping horses, five rocking horses and two chariots.

The price -- $150,000 -- includes complete installation, indoors or out.

Also in the never ending list of catalogs are Wine Design, featuring a Napa Valley Monopoly set; Illuminations, featuring candles of all shapes and sizes; Hershey, a chocoholic's downfall; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this year featuring tiny jeweled shoe Christmas tree ornaments; Tiffany's loaded with exquisite gifts for those with very deep pockets; The Mind's Eye, offering a baseball bat customized with your very own name; and -- what home in the United States is without this one? -- Mile-Kimball, with hundreds of pages of goodies ranging from a WWJD visor clip to the "Tap-Teaser," a comb that promised fuller looking hair in seconds.

The catalog of the Christmas season is -- you guessed it -- Neiman Marcus. Stocking stuffers from Neiman's include a custom-designed maze for your garden ($250,000), a Victorian tiara ($300,000), and some original 1913 seats from fabled Ebbets Field, home of the old Brooklyn Dodgers.

So much for catalogs.

Retailers now have another threat to the retail dollar, especially during the holiday season -- The Internet!

In 1996, sales volume over the Internet was more than $500 million, and marketing experts foresee Internet sales volume at $500 billion by the end of year 2000.

In 1996, people were just testing the Internet, say marketers, who think that catalog retailers in particular find the Internet attractive and inexpensive.

Catalogs, they say, are expensive to produce, so for a lot of catalog companies, the Internet makes sense.

Many large retailers are using the Internet Web sites primarily to provide store, product and advertising information. The huge retailers still want customers in the store.

B. Ray Owen is business editor for the Southeast Missourian.