Smaller catalogue merchants can scrap their shipping orders with U.P.S. and switch to a competitor with relative ease.

A catalogue merchant could quickly call up data from its computer that would indicate the status of a caller's account even before the sales representative answered.

Attracting customers like Mrs. Santucci is a daunting task these days for retailers and catalogue merchants.

A number of other big catalogue merchants said today that they, too, have felt cost increases.

A catalog merchant (catalogue merchant in British and Canadian English) is a form of retailing.

In the United Kingdom, the largest general goods retailer is Argos, a catalogue merchant.

The next six weeks of Christmas shopping will be critical to the sales of many retailers, but none more so than mail-order catalogue merchants.

For mail-order catalogue merchants, the next six weeks of Christmas shopping will be critical.

Retailers have learned from the success of the catalogue merchants, and they are increasingly offering mail-order shopping themselves, said Chet Dalzell, the association's spokesman.

Argos is a catalogue merchant based in the United Kingdom and Ireland.