AmeriMark Direct Timeline
1969: Avvy Katz founds the Anthony Richards women’s apparel catalog.
1995: After acquiring beauty products catalog Beauty Boutique and jewelry catalog Windsor Collection in the intervening years, Katz starts health products catalog Healthy Living.
1998: Katz and Gary Giesler, former executive vice president at Crosstown Traders (then known as Arizona Mail Order), co-launch a discount membership buying club for Katz’s customers. The club offers discounts on merchandise, hotels and services for an annual fee. On April 1, Giesler and his partners purchase Katz’s company, then known as TransAmerica Holdings. Several days later, a fire in a warehouse destroys most of the company’s apparel merchandise.
2000: Giesler renames the company AmeriMark Direct and launches the company’s first e-commerce site. The first Anthony Richards spin-off launches, a shoe catalog titled Complements.
2005: Private equity firm JH Partners acquires a 75 percent stake in AmeriMark. The company launches Time for Me, an upscale relaxation products catalog, and Essentials, a second Anthony Richards spin-off, this time with intimate apparel. Unlike the rest of the company’s catalogs, Time for Me launches with its own Web site.
2006: Further testing the waters of individual Web sites for the catalogs, AmeriMark launches a stand-alone Web site for Beauty Boutique.
