The Redoubt, the big catalog that no longer exists, but it was small

The famous brand of the sale by correspondence, to be converted to e-commerce, edit, more the big catalog that has made its legend. But it has not however given up trying to present its products on paper.

For decades, it was an object that is present in all French homes : the catalog La Redoute, this big book of over 1200 pages presenting comprehensively the tens of thousands of references of the VPCiste of Roubaix, clothes, up to household appliances. A bit like if we put now all the offers from Amazon on paper. This was before the existence of the Internet, when the sign northerner ruled the roost on the sale by mail order in France.

Since then, the growth of e-commerce has gradually rendered obsolete, the object of a cult born in 1928, circulated twice a year (spring-summer and autumn-winter), millions of copies throughout France. In winter 2015, while La Redoute has just been bought out by its managers, Nathalie Balla and Eric Courteille for group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (now Kering) and the company, affected by the digital revolution, is seeking to reinvent itself, the catalog is permanently abandoned. As the symbol of a change of era.

Three catalogs for the three key brands

And yet... the catalog La Redoute is not dead ! Today, the brand, which has taken over color, achieves 90% of its sales online. But it continues to print paper, to present their products. At least, those two key areas on which it has been refocused to operate its revival : furnishing/decoration and the ready-to-wear.

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On these two markets, The Redoubt has its own brands, La Redoute Interiors and AMPM for the first, La Redoute Collections for the second. Each of these three brands is the subject of a paper catalogue, edited at a pace that is either annual, or seasonal. These publications are disseminated via the four channels, explains Jean-Philippe Sloves, director of communications : "We will send them by mail to a number of clients, it can also receive on demand, browse online on our site, and finally find them in our showrooms [for La Redoute Interiors and AMPM]."

the cover of The catalogue AMPM 2019.

La Redoute

showcases more than sales channels

These catalogues, of course, are less thick than it used to be : of 47 pages for the catalog seasonal La Redoute Collections to 290 for the catalog's annual La Redoute Interiors. Is that the objective is no longer the same : now, these papers are no longer thought of as sales channels. They do include a selection of the offer. The Redoubt conceives of them rather as "points of contact window", intended to make you discover the brands, to give the trends of the collections... and to bring customers to the site.

"To the ready-to-wear, the brand La Redoute Collections, it really is in small papers, which announce new collections, new collaborations with designers... They show a preview and make you want to go to to discover more on the web," explains Jean-Philippe Sloves. On the segment decoration, home brands La Redoute Interiors and AMPM, we are closer to catalogues, traditional, which are destined to remain in the homes, because customers will come back several times, to see the different inspirations that can be found there. But they do not contain really product sheets, instead of beautiful pictures." Especially in the case of AMPM, the brand more high-end and cutting-edge, in which the catalogue flirts with the codes of the magazine of decoration, with a "development atmosphere" very studied products.

The ingredients of a strategy "phygitale"

But why continue to publish catalogues, while the rest of the relationship marketing of The Redoubt is now 100% digital ? Because they are efficient ! "In particular in the field of decoration and the house, it is an important and necessary tool in the act of purchase", notes Jean-Philippe Sloves.

The idea joined the strategy, "phygitale" - contraction of physical and digital - as adopted by The Redoubt. If the sign, returned from a near-death announced, there is now a heavy weight of the e-commerce, with 10 million customers and 7 million unique visitors per month on its site, it does not lose not, for all its anchoring in physical... and even, develops. In addition to the catalogue, the company of Roubaix has for its brands La Redoute Interiors and AMPM a dozen "showrooms connected" (shops where only one product selection is made, the rest will be accessible via tablets). It also operates concessions in department stores of the Galeries Lafayette group, which acquired 51% of La Redoute in 2017, and plans to open fifty more as soon as this year, both for the furnishings/decoration and ready-to-wear. Points of sale where you will also find... catalogs.

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catalogue La Redoute Collections spring-summer 2019.

La Redoute