R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., Chicago, has launched a service called Select Source to help catalogers put product offers next to related editorial on the Internet.
Select Source, for instance, will put a client's gardening product next to an article on gardening, according to R.R. Donnelley.
So far, the service is in place at iVillage (www.ivillage.com), HouseNet (www.housenet.com), HomeArts (www.homearts.com) and the Wedding Channel (www.weddingchannel.com). R.R. Donnelley said it expects 500 Web sites to be participating by year's end.
“Select Source helps our catalog and retail customers implement the simple direct marketing rule of offering the right product to the right person at the right time,” said Brian Bodell, director of e-commerce sales for R.R. Donnelley online services.
Bodell said to use Select Source, catalogers must send R.R. Donnelley images and related text of the products they want to sell on the Web. R.R. Donnelley then places the offers online within 14 days.
The service costs $25 for each product for conversion from print to a Web-ready format, plus a 15-percent commission on sales.
