Retailers in Slovakia keep secret how many tonnes of paper they spend on printing promotion catalogues. (source: The Slovak Spectator)
Postboxes overstuffed with promotional catalogues should soon be a thing of the past. Food retail chains are starting to send their catalogues through messenger applications, as reported by the Sme daily.
Lidl stopped delivering its promotional catalogues in 24 cities in Slovakia, including Bratislava and Trnava. It has begun using Messenger and e-mails. However, customers must sign up for it themselves.
Kaufland decided to use Viber, and Tesco has its own Tesco Clubcard app, available to customers possessing this clubcard. Billa has a similar app developed.
“We are developing a customer application, which will contain promotional catalogues,” Billa spokesperson Kvetoslava Kirchnerová said, as quoted by Sme.
Although retailers are trying to cut down on paper, they cannot avoid the obligation to publish at least half of their Slovak products in them. The new rule was adopted by the parliament in May 2019.
Guide on promotional catalogues
Lidl decided to make the pictures of Slovak products smaller but added more pictures to the page to comply with this law.
Places with no Lidl catalogues:
Bratislava, Malacky, Štúrovo, Vráble, Želiezovce, Šahy, Levice, Šurany, Šamorín, Veľký Meder, Nové Zámky, Hurbanovo, Komárno, Trnava, Pezinok, Modra, Senec, Nitra, Hlohovec, Sereď, Galanta, Dunajská Streda, Šaľa, Bernolákovo.
The Agriculture Ministry reacted by issuing a guide on how the images should look.
“Products should be displayed at an adequate size and have a uniform graphic design to prevent some agricultural products from being at a disadvantage,” the guide reads.
The ministry took this step even though there have been no complaints regarding promotional catalogues recorded by the State Veterinary and Food Administration (ŠVPS), which checks these catalogues.
Lidl eventually made the images in its online and paper catalogues larger.
How much paper do retailers use?
Retailers are determined to become eco-friendly, but not everyone may welcome this.
For instance, older Lidl customers may not be happy about the company's decision not to deliver catalogues to some homes. Many of them use paper catalogues to seek and compare promotional events on a weekly basis.
Lidl hopes this decision will help save up to 850 tonnes of paper a year. Tesco and Metro, on the other hand, reduced the number of catalogue pages.
Metro sent out 2.5 million paper catalogues to households in Slovakia, which is about 230 tonnes of paper. The company, however, claims it has managed to reduce the amount of catalogues by more than a half.
In general, retail chains keep how much paper they use to print promotional catalogues a secret.
