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Saks Inc. will close its Folio catalog operation as part of a general consolidation of its Saks Direct business, the firm announced today.

The firm will also integrate its saks.com e-commerce unit with the Saks Fifth Avenue retail organization.

The Folio and Bullock & Jones catalogs will be eliminated next February. In their place, the firm will use its Store Book traffic generator catalogs to sell direct.

The Folio shutdown will reduce Saks Direct's revenue from $126.7 million last year to $100 million in 2001, the company predicted. That figure will drop to $45 million in 2002, the first full year of integration.

Roughly 50 positions will be eliminated between now and February 2002. Additional reductions will take place in the fulfillment and call center operations in the first quarter of 2002.

Meanwhile, the Store Books will have toll-free telephone numbers and order forms added to them, and circulation will be increased to high-value customers. They will offer merchandise sold in Saks Fifth Avenue stores.

"Over the years, the Saks Fifth Avenue Folio operation was developed into as separate business, as opposed to an integrated channel of distribution for the core Saks Fifth Avenue stores," said R. Brad Martin, chairman and chief executive officer of Saks Inc., in a statement. "The catalog business was not necessarily reflective of Saks Fifth Avenue's core merchandising competency of luxury apparel and accessories."

Martin added that having a separate catalog operation "created too much overhead and complexity in our direct response business." The Birmingham, AL-based company also realized that "the online market is not of sufficient size at this time to justify the substantial investment involved in this separate structure."