By Justin Fenton
Enquirer staff writer

The weighty phone book that gets delivered to your doorstep each summer is more than a place to find a plumber or a car part.

It's also a place to learn about the shopping habits of Greater Cincinnati consumers.

TOP LISTINGS

The most frequently referenced headings. Nationally: 1. Restaurants 2. Physicians 3. Auto parts, new/used 4. Auto Repair 5. Pizza 6. Auto dealers, new/used 7. Beauty salons 8. Attorneys 9. Dentists 10. Hospitals Locally: 1. Florists 2. Auto repair & service 3. Auto parts, new/used 4. Physicians 5. Dentists 6. Restaurants 7. Pizza 8. Veterinarians 9. Attorneys 10. Tires The fastest-growing headings over the last year Nationally: Garden/lawn equipment Landscape Plumbing contractor Storage Carpet/rug cleaners Internet Windows Cellular telephones Loans Cable TV Locally: Security consultants Satellite equipment & systems Credit-counseling services Furnace cleaning Chiropractors Towing - auto Buses - charter & rental Auto-body repair Mini-blinds Water-damage restoration

The distribution process of more than 2.5 million Cincinnati Bell Yellow Pages in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky is nearly finished, and its contents and function show some curious differences from those of other Yellow Pages across the country.

Based on national marketing research, the business category that Cincinnati-area Yellow Pages users flip to most is florists, a category that doesn't even make the top 10 nationally (it's 17th).

The rankings showing categories consumers most often refer to are based on annual polling by the independent Knowledge Networks SRI, which conducts an annual survey of 20,000 consumers nationally on whether they have used a particular service or business category in the past month and whether they used the Yellow Pages to find it, said Valerie Schmitt, Cincinnati Bell Yellow Pages' director of print marketing and communications.

The high interest in florists didn't surprise Alma Brown, owner of A&J's Floral Boutique in Sharonville.

"The people in Cincinnati are more conscientious about the gifts they give, and flowers happen to be one of the most important things to give," she said.

Cincinnati Bell Yellow Pages also tracks the fastest-growing categories of businesses, or how many businesses are listed within a category, by looking at Yellow Pages data on how many were listed from one year to the next.

The fastest-growing Cincinnati-area headings were security consultants and satellite equipment and systems companies. The rest of the list shows furnace cleaning was fourth-fastest; charter bus rental service companies were seventh-fastest; and mini-blind dealers were ninth-fastest.

That compares to national data showing the fastest-growing categories of advertisers in the Yellow Pages nationally to be lawn care (garden/lawn equipment, landscape), storage, and technology (Internet, cellular telephones and cable TV) companies.

Cincinnati retail consultant Stan Eichelbaum said he wasn't surprised that security consultants were the fastest-growing category in the local Yellow Pages, given the heightened community awareness of security issues by politicians and the press.

He said the prominence of florists, however, made him suspicious about the results because Kroger is the No. 1 florist in America, making the competition tough in the Cincinnati-area market.

"You would expect with access so ready that there'd be lesser numbers, and that makes you question the entire analysis," Eichelbaum said.

Cincinnati Bell Yellow Pages this week is wrapping up more than 24,800 spot checks to ensure all deliveries were made. David Miller, vice president of sales and operations, said 1,400 seasonal carriers are employed to distribute the books and make three rounds of calls to each person on every street within the distribution route.

Butler and Warren County residents will receive their books in late October and November.

E-mail jfenton@enquirer.com