NEW YORK -- By 1995, 50 percent of all consumer shopping in the United States will be done by mail, says Harold Schwartz, president of Hanover House Industries.
'Closet mail order shoppers' abound already, says Schwartz. 'Twenty-five percent of consumer shopping is presently done by mail, a figure that will grow to 50 percent by 1995,' predicted Schwartz. He said direct mail sales will reach an annual volume of $300 billion by that year.
He attributes the boom in direct mail buying to gasoline prices and the fact that working women -- whose numbers are soaring -- do not want to spend their spare time shopping.
People also like buying by mail because 'they like to send presents to themselves,' Schwartz said.
'Statistics show that 80 percent of the population buys by mail - usually records or books. Only about 25 percent buys merchandise,' Schwartz said.
'We want to convert those closet mail order shoppers into true merchandise buyers,' Schwartz said.
'We have 6 million names and we know a lot about what those people want,' Schwartz said in an interview with Hanover Senior Vice President William Fitzgerald at the company's Manhattan office.
'We know whether a woman has money or not and we keep track of what she wants out of our catalogs,' Schwarts said. 'If she buys the most expensive items out of one catalog, we send her the next catalog up (in prices). If she buys lingerie, we send her our lingerie catalog.'
The lingerie catalog is full of bare skin, black lace and cleavage. Schwartz and Fitzgerald say plenty of men order from the catalog for their wives and lovers as well as women who might feel funny buying some of the filmier undies and gowns in department stores.
'One longtime customer even wrote us saying she loved the catalog but please stop sending it because her 14-year-old was always running for the mailbox after school and looking at it before she got home from work,' Fitzgerald said.
Another letter on the lingerie catalog the two men laughed about was from an 85-year-old widow who noted that only her bird saw her nightclothes and she didn't think she'd be needing anything too alluring.
The offerings are beautiful and range from a $78 white, peau de soie gown with Cluny lace to a pair of sheer, white, string bikini underpants for $5.
The fashion catalogs feature a wide range of prices and style from The Chelsea Collection, for the younger working women; Pennsylvania Station, for the more chic, fashion-conscious, young woman; First Editions, for the quality bargain hunter. All of the fashions are under $100 with many dresses selling for under $50.
The company even has shoe catalogs.
'We ask out customers to try the shoes out in their homes,' Fitzgerald said. 'But we had one guy who took a pair out on a six-mile hike and decided he didn't like them. Not only did he want his money back, he even wanted 20 cents back for the stamp he had on his order.
'We gave it to him.'
In women's shoes, a pair of leather spectators with 2-inch heels in red and white or navy and white can be purchased for $47 from the higher-priced Imprints catalog, or one can buy urethane spectators with 2-inch heels in the same colors for $21.99 in the lower-priced Cosmo Pedics catalog. The latter catalog is for older women interested in bargains and comfort, Fitzgerald said.
Hanover House sales in 1977 totalled $27 million. So far this year, they are $100 million, Schwartz said. Profits were $8.7 million in 1981.
The firm was founded in Hanover, Penn., in 1934 to sell low-priced gifts through catalogs. In 1949, it started selling low-priced fashions as well.
Then in 1972, the company was purchased by Horn & Hardart Co., and it since has become one of the largest and most diversified mail order companies in the nation.
