Hasbro Inc. is issuing its first-ever direct-to-consumer catalog to drive traffic to its online shopping site, HasbroToyshop.com, and retail stores.

“It’s really part of our long-term multi-channel strategy,” says Ed Kriete, senior vice president of marketing. “We started with the web site and then the next logical evolution from that was to the catalog. We see the two working hand-in-hand.”

Although Hasbro has had sites for its more than 80 different brands since the 1990s, it didn’t launch an online store until May 2005, Kriete says. The brand sites-such as GIJoe.com and Transformers.com-are all linked to HasbroToyshop.com as part of a unified e-commerce platform.

Visitors to the Hasbro corporate site can also link to the shopping site as well as to the sites of Hasbro retail partners such as Walmart.com and ToysRUs.com.

The 68-page catalog, launched this week, features some of Hasbro’s most popular brands, including Tiger Electronics, Playskool, My Little Pony, Star Wars, Transformers, Littlest Pet Shop, Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers. Consumers also will be able to order items from the catalog using an 800 number. A second catalog will be mailed prior to the holiday shopping season, the retailer said. “The online store pretty much replicates what’s out in the retail stores,” Kriete says.

The catalog is broken down into four sections-preschool, boys, girls and electronics and games.

The retailer is sending the catalogs to people who register at the Hasbro sites and to customers of HasbroToyshop.com, Kriete says.