ABSTRACT
The mail-order business proved to be the retailing revolution of the 1980s. According to the Direct Marketing Association, Inc., the number of catalogs mailed per year grew from 5.8 billion in 1980 to 12.4 billion in 1988. The mail-order industry as big business dates back to the turn of the century when department store chains such as Sears sought customers in rural America. The bonanza reaped by retailers such as L. L. Bean, Lands' End, and homewares colossus Williams-Sonoma attracted a flood of imitators. The field faced a number of stiff challenges besides a glut of players at the outset of the 1990s. Although mail-order companies historically didn't have to charge sales tax because most orders came from out of state, approximately half passed new laws in the late 1980s to reserve that policy. Mailing costs both for catalogs and merchandise were steadily on the rise; catalog mailing costs alone jumped 25 percent in 1988.
