A Compendium of the Year’s Top Tips in Cataloging and E-commerce

By The Catalog Success Staff

Effective vendor selection.
Negotiate the best price with your vendor, but cultivate the relationship. Price shouldn’t be the No. 1 criterion when selecting a vendor.
—Stephen R. Lett, Lett Direct, Strategy, “Partner With the Best,” June, Catalog Success

Use benchmarking to determine the effectiveness of departmental changes.
Choose an area of your company where workload is nearing or exceeding capacity. If you’re considering adding more CSRs, meet with your existing CSRs and explain that you’re developing a plan to improve their work environment. Have them document their challenges and make any suggestions for improvement. Tell them you’ll monitor everyone’s workload and post the results. Keep monitoring for a 12-week period. Each week pick an improvement suggestion and implement it. You’ll find that productivity and morale increase.
—Debra Wilson Ellis, Wilson & Ellis, “Improve Efficiency With a Benchmarking Strategy,” Feb. 7, Catalog Success Idea Factory