Furniture is an unusual catalog category. The purchase is large enough that most buyers want to see pieces in person before committing, which has historically made pure mail-order furniture a harder business than apparel or gifts. Yet several furniture operations have built successful catalog-plus-showroom models, and …

I started Home Shopping Guide because the mail-order catalog world is bigger and more fragmented than most people realize. There are hundreds of catalogs for home furniture, appliances, outdoor living, garden, and décor — ranging from major retailers everyone knows to specialty houses that have been shipping to loyal …