Trends: Catazines and Magalogs

Justice, a specialty retailer of apparel for girls ages 7 to 14 launched a "catazine," a cross between a catalog and a magazine, this month. Justice's catazine caters exclusively to increasingly fashion-conscious tweens and will help tweens put together the perfect back-to-school outfit. The new, 52-page catalog, called Justice, was mailed to about 1 million girls ages 7-14, according to DM News.

Increasing, we see magazines becoming catalogs and catalogs becoming magazines. Lucky Magazine, the magazine about shopping, is generally credited with starting the trend. This new breed of magazine doesn't rely on celebrities or 'how-to' sex stories. In fact, new-style magalogs make some things work that catalogs can't. While catalogers, less than successfully tried to insert pages of sticky tabs for customers to attach to a page of an item they wanted to buy, Lucky can offer this and gain, as it sells these as part of a paid ad.

What makes Catazines different from Magalogs?
Not entirely sure, but it seems that in Magalogs, unlike in regular magazines, virtually every editorial block highlights charms of a particular item, provides the url or phone number to purchase it.
Catazine is a catalog-turned-magazine. Catalogs are usually brought out by one big retailer or a brand name unlike magalogs which feature multiple brands....

Still confused? Read the article "Serious Competition or Opportunity" By Katie Muldoon, president of DM/catalog consulting firm Muldoon & Baer.