NYT: A Retailing Mix: On Internet, in Print and in Store

By this year, the Internet will represent 30 percent of Lands' End's holiday sales, up from 25 percent last year. And the company, now owned by Sears, Roebuck, is still going to mail 270 million catalogs. Many customers, it turns out, buy from each at different times and for different reasons. […]

"The catalog is not going away," [J.Crew's e-commerce VP David] Towers said. "We have found that the catalog and the Internet have synergistic effect. We have customers that shop in just one channel but many shop in all three channels." […]

As retailers become more adept at multichannel selling, they are learning how to use each opportunity. The Internet is especially useful for presenting detailed information about a product. […] But paper is still better for browsing and displaying photographs. As a result, Lands' End, and other sites, find that solid colors sell better online, while prints and patterns do better in catalogs."