It's Cyber Monday, where shoppers will spend 10 to 11 billion dollars on line! But are holiday catalogs making a comeback?
Before online shopping, people picked out presents the old fashioned way - in a catalog. It was way back in 1934 when Sears published their first holiday catalog....and it was epic! They called it the wish book, filled with everything from toys to appliances. Kids used to circle pictures for Santa telling the page numbers of the stuff they wanted. Can you believe one catalog even offered a house to buy....and it would be delivered piece by piece to any address you chose?
Times sure have changed. Sears stopped publishing their holiday catalog in 2011, and most people don't shop in catalogs any more. But in a trend of nostalgia, Amazon is actually an unlikely successor in the catalog game. The world’s largest online retailer started sending out their own toy catalog in 2018, and they’re bringing it back again this year. It turns out Millennials are drawn to the big glossy books, not just Boomers, as you would think.
Many superstar catalogs, like JC Penney, Spiegel, and of course, Sears, are not around any more.... but there are plenty of other retailers sending them out for all your holiday shopping needs.
Photos: Getty