Holiday Catalogues Fill Mailboxes : Retailing: Offering round-the-clock customer service and express delivery, mail-order business growth has exploded in recent years.

After a long day, film reviewer Judith Crist admits to indulging in a secret passion: She curls up with a favorite beverage, kicks off her shoes, and pulls out some plastic for a night of catalogue shopping.

That’s how she discovered her 18-foot feather duster, that “fabulosa almond toffee” and most of the additions to her wardrobe, among other things.

“I don’t like going into stores and trying on things . . . so I buy even my shoes from catalogues,” said Crist, an admitted catalogue junkie. “I’ve already been screening them with an eye toward Christmas.”

Crist’s shop-at-home preference is shared by an increasing number of American consumers. In recent weeks, most have found their mailboxes crammed with holiday catalogues hawking everything from miniature TVs to portable clambakes.

While some consider catalogues to be glorified junk mail, others see the sleek publications, with their high-quality photographs and folksy rhetoric, as an important source for convenient shopping, albeit usually at a premium price.

Last year, more than half the adult population ordered $51.5 billion worth of merchandise from the 13.5 billion catalogues mailed out--about a 75% increase over a decade ago, says the Direct Marketing Assn.

The trade group expects sales to grow steadily through the ‘90s as more retailers successfully branch into specialty catalogues and busy two-income households abandon the old shop-’til-you-drop motto.

“People don’t have the time to run out to the shopping malls on their weekends. They may have disposable income, but they’re time poor,” said Deborah Warner, a spokeswoman for Hammacher Schlemmer, a purveyor of upscale gizmos and gadgets. “That’s why they shop by catalogue.”

Hammacher Schlemmer derives about 85% of its business from catalogue orders and boasts the longest continuously published catalogue in the nation. Its recently mailed holiday book includes a $199.95 notebook-sized fax machine and a Babe Ruth autographed baseball for $4,990.

The assortment of unusual or hard-to-find merchandise offered in many catalogues--even the environmental group Greenpeace has one out now--has always been a draw for consumers.

But the proliferation of toll-free, 24-hour telephone service for credit-card users, along with faxing options and overnight deliveries, has helped the catalogue industry’s growth explode in recent years. Fierce competition, which contributed to the recent demise of the granddaddy Sears catalogue, has also led to improved service.

Got a hankering for fishing gear at 3 a.m.? No problem. Don’t know what to do about your mom’s birthday two days away? No problem there either.

“The one thing we really strive for is customer service,” said Michele Casper, a spokeswoman for Lands’ End Inc., where the average order is between $60 and $80, and round-the-clock sales representatives constitute nearly 20% of the work force.

Casper said Lands’ End patrons are “willing to spend the money to have an item that will last. They’ve become more value and quality conscious.”

While Lands’ End and other established catalogue houses have received high marks for service and quality, not all direct-mail retailers are alike.

“The catalogue business falls into two groups: One is the very high quality company and the other is the one that sells essentially schlock,” said David Klein, co-author of “Getting Unscrewed,” a consumer book.

The “schlockers,” he said, may lack guarantee policies, leave out dimensions in their catalogue descriptions, or air-brush photographs of merchandise.

“It looks beautiful in the photograph, but when you get it, it’s a miniature piece of junk,” Klein said. “You also have to be careful about the line ‘not found in stores,’ because there’s probably a reason why they’re not sold in stores.”

He said the biggest offenders purvey goods on late-night TV.

“Sure, their knives and clippers can cut through a penny--once. (But) that’s the end of that clipper,” said Klein, who is also a consumer representative at Washington state’s office of the attorney general.

On the other end of the scale, some consumer groups say, is catalogue merchandise from museum shops, which offer exceptional value because curators often work closely with artisans.

Klein and others urge consumers to buy from companies with a proven track record, otherwise they should keep their initial orders at a minimum.

That’s what movie reviewer Crist does. Although she gets enough catalogues to fill a barrel-sized recycling bin every three weeks, the New York resident says she limits purchases to a proven circle of retailers.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop other catalogue purveyors from trying to win her over. “I seem to be on everyone’s list . . . (and) they keep sending me catalogues . . . even the ones that say ‘This is the last catalogue you will get.’ ”

Getting unrequested catalogues isn’t uncommon these days, particularly for those with ZIP codes in affluent areas.

Catalogue companies routinely exchange mailing lists with competitors and keep a computerized cache of information that includes individuals’ demographic backgrounds and spending habits, said Dick Hodgson, who heads the consulting firm Sargeant House and helped start the QVC cable TV shopping network.

“We’re the only country in the world that does that,” he said.

Hodgson, who teaches retailers worldwide about the fine art of cataloguing, doesn’t believe catalogue shopping will surpass more traditional methods.

“You have to be willing to buy sight unseen. There are still going to be that high percentage of people who like to touch and feel,” he said.

Still, technological advances are narrowing the difference between shopping in stores and shopping at home. The growth of on-line computerized shopping services and TV channels devoted to home shopping provide proof that you don’t need to try something on to buy it.

Some catalogue houses have even displayed their wares on home-shopping TV. An estimated $2 billion in merchandise was sold this way last year, and experts expect revenue to rise as more companies enter the TV-shopping fray.

Time Warner Inc. and Spiegel Inc., for example, are planning an interactive “video shopping mall.”