A letterbox tradition under threat
If you grew up in the UK, chances are the weekly supermarket leaflet was a fixture of your household. It would land on the doormat, get picked up by whoever reached the kitchen first, and end up on the table next to the kettle. Lidl on a Monday, Sainsbury's midweek, the thick Argos catalogue before Christmas. For decades, printed promotional material was how British shoppers found out what was on offer. But something has shifted. More retailers are cutting back on print or ditching it entirely, and digital leaflets — the kind you scroll through on your phone or laptop — are filling the gap. The question for shoppers is whether this shift is actually an improvement, or whether something valuable is being lost along the way.
What printed leaflets still do well
The kitchen table experience
There is a reason people feel nostalgic about paper leaflets, and it is not just habit. Spreading a leaflet out on the kitchen table with a cup of tea is a genuinely pleasant way to plan your shopping. You can circle items with a biro, fold over a corner to come back to, or tear out a page and stick it on the fridge. For couples or families, it becomes a shared activity — someone spots a deal, holds it up, and you discuss whether it is worth it. That physical interaction is hard to replicate on a screen, and for plenty of people, especially those who already spend too many hours staring at phones and laptops, it is a welcome analogue experience.
Accessibility without technology
A paper leaflet requires no battery, no Wi-Fi, no app updates, and no passwords. It works for your 85-year-old grandad who has never owned a smartphone just as well as it works for you. According to ONS data on internet usage, around 5 percent of UK adults — roughly 2.5 million people — are still not regular internet users. For these households, a printed leaflet is not a quaint throwback; it is the only way they find out about weekly promotions. Any move to digital-only risks leaving them behind entirely.
Browsing without distractions
When you open a paper leaflet, the only thing competing for your attention is what is on the page. When you open a digital leaflet on your phone, you are one notification away from falling down a social media rabbit hole. There is something to be said for a format that does not ping, buzz, or try to sell you something else while you are looking at this week's offers on chicken thighs.
Where digital leaflets have the edge
You always have them with you
The classic problem with a printed leaflet is leaving it at home. You are standing in the car park at Tesco trying to remember whether the offer was on the 500g mince or the 750g, and the leaflet is sitting on your kitchen counter. With digital leaflets on CatalogFlix, that problem disappears. Pull out your phone, open the site, and you have every current offer from every major retailer right there. You can check in the car park, in the queue, or while you are wandering the aisles trying to decide between two brands of washing-up liquid.
Comparing across stores is actually practical
Try comparing deals from Lidl, Tesco, and Sainsbury's using paper leaflets. You need three separate booklets, ideally spread out side by side, and a good memory for prices. Digitally, you can flick between retailers in seconds on CatalogFlix without losing your place. If you are the sort of shopper who splits their weekly shop across two or three stores to get the best value — and more people are doing this than ever — digital comparison is dramatically easier than shuffling paper.
The environmental argument
The UK produces hundreds of millions of promotional leaflets every year. That is a staggering amount of paper, ink, and diesel for delivery vans. WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) has long advocated for reducing unnecessary paper waste, and promotional leaflets that go straight from doormat to recycling bin — as many do — are a prime candidate. A digital version of the same leaflet serves the same purpose with a fraction of the environmental footprint. No trees, no transport, no recycling required.
They update instantly
Printed leaflets take days to design, proof, print, and distribute. By the time one hits your doormat, the offers might already be a day or two old. Digital leaflets go live the moment the retailer publishes them, which means you see offers sooner and have more time to plan around them. If a deal sells out or a price changes, the digital version can reflect that — paper obviously cannot.
Expired leaflets stick around
Last week's paper leaflet is in your recycling bin. Last week's digital leaflet is still on CatalogFlix, greyed out so you know it has expired but still fully readable. This matters more than you might think. Want to check whether Sainsbury's "special offer" on olive oil is genuinely cheaper than it was a fortnight ago, or just the same price repackaged as a deal? With a digital archive, you can actually verify that. Which? has written extensively about misleading pricing practices in UK retail, and having access to past leaflets is one of the best tools shoppers have for spotting them.
What the retailers are doing
The trend is unmistakable. Argos discontinued its iconic printed catalogue — the one that sat in every household, dog-eared and scribbled on — back in 2020 after 48 years. IKEA followed suit with its global catalogue in 2021. Supermarkets have been quietly reducing print runs for years, redirecting budget towards apps, websites, and platforms like CatalogFlix. Lidl still distributes some printed material, but its Lidl Plus app is where the most valuable coupons and offers now live. Tesco's Clubcard app has become the gateway to its best prices, with in-store signage constantly nudging shoppers towards the digital experience.
This is not going to reverse. Print costs money — a lot of it — and digital alternatives reach more people for less. Smaller retailers who could never afford mass leaflet distribution can now publish digital catalogues at a fraction of the cost, which actually levels the playing field somewhat.
So which is better for shoppers?
If you are being strictly practical, digital wins on almost every count. It is more convenient, more up-to-date, easier to compare across stores, better for the environment, and it comes with an archive that makes price-checking possible. The only areas where print genuinely has the advantage are tactile satisfaction and accessibility for non-digital households — both of which matter, but neither of which outweigh the practical benefits for most shoppers.
The good news is that the shift to digital does not have to mean a worse experience. CatalogFlix brings together leaflets from all the major UK retailers in one place, free and without registration. You get the same information you used to receive through the letterbox, but faster, more conveniently, and with the ability to look back at previous weeks. If you have been holding on to the paper habit out of loyalty rather than necessity, it might be worth giving the digital version a proper try. You might find that the convenience of having every deal at your fingertips more than makes up for the loss of circling things with a biro.