2002 Catalogers of the Year

The winners of the first-annual Catalog Success Catalogers of the Year awards have brought a wealth of experiences, knowledge and skills to the industry.

On the following pages you’ll meet these impressive catalogers. We’re honored to recognize the contributions these five professionals have made to cataloging.

“These are challenging times for catalogers,” said Peggy Hatch, group publisher, Catalog Success magazine. “What better time to stop and recognize four remarkable individuals and their extraordinary success? I know that catalogers will find these stories both inspirational and educational. Catalog Success is delighted to showcase these catalog professionals, and we heartily congratulate them on their awards.”

How the winners were chosen: For three months (mid-December through early March), nominations from the industry were accepted from readers, editorial advisors and industry consultants. The Catalog Success editors carefully reviewed all nomination materials and narrowed the award categories to three nominees each. Then a panel of four judges selected the final winners.

We thank the following industry professionals for their work on the judging panel:

Lois Boyle, president, J. Schmid & Associates, catalog consulting firm;

Herschell Gordon Lewis of Lewis Enterprises, a copywriting firm;

Denny Hatch, contributing editor to Catalog Success and Target Marketing magazines, and author of the books “Method Marketing” and “2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success”; and

Glenda Shasho Jones, president and CEO, Shasho Jones Direct, a catalog marketing, creative and production consultancy.

CONSUMER CATALOGER OF THE YEAR

Becky Jewett, president, Norm Thompson catalogs

A 20-year veteran of cataloging, Becky Jewett took on her role at Norm Thompson about five years ago. Since then, Jewett along with company owners John and Jane Emrick and a dedicated staff, are turning Norm Thompson into a model of social and fiscal responsibility.

Jewett came to the Portland, OR-based, four-title catalog company with impressive credentials. Previously, she was president of Chadwick’s; senior vice president of marketing at Talbot’s; and vice president of marketing at Swiss Colony catalog.

Today, Jewett and the other Norm Thompson team members have instituted a business philosophy of environmental sustainability and human rights coupled with sound financial principles (see Catalog Success, “Commerce with a Conscience,” January 2002).

In the last few years, during which time Norm Thompson has instituted numerous environmental programs, the company has saved an estimated $5 million. “Once you start looking at your business practices through an environmental screen, you’ll be surprised at what you find,” Jewett says. “Making even small changes in your operation will improve your bottom line, because you’re using your resources wisely.

“Plus,” she continues, “it’s just the right thing to do.”

Some of the sustainability and human rights projects the company has instituted include:

• use of recycled paper in all of its catalogs;

• human rights audits in the overseas manufacturing plants of its vendors to ensure that working conditions for employees there are humane;

• asking that the catalog’s merchants source environmentally friendly product alternatives (e.g., apparel made of organically grown cotton) whenever possible;

• hiring a sustainability manager whose role includes helping the company recycle waste and keeping employees focused on the environmental impact of their actions.

The latter has seen impressive ideas put into action, including a program to save on shipping cartons and infrastructure-related costs. For example, says Jewett, employees were given plastic cups to drink from while at work, which enabled the company to stop buying paper cups for its vending machines. That one small change is saving the company from buying about 40,000 paper cups a year. “Think about that one line-item savings a year,” says Jewett.

In short, Jewett’s steady and skilled oversight is enabling Norm Thompson to step to the forefront of responsible cataloging. “Our goal here at Norm Thompson,” she notes, “is to influence other catalogers to follow our lead, to improve the quality of their lives and that of their children and grandchildren.”

Honorable Mentions:

Rob and Diane O’Connor, presidents, Creative Irish Gifts catalog

Lisa Hammond, president, Femail Creations Catalog

BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS CATALOGERS OF THE YEAR

Shep and Wendy Moyle, owners, Stumps catalogs

Shep and Wendy Moyle took a small, one-title catalog company employing 40 people, and turned it into a 14-title firm with seven Web sites and 425 employees.

The Moyles own Stumps, an Indiana-based catalog company that sells party and prom supplies via print and online catalogs primarily to schools, hotels, convention centers and other institutions. Last year, the company mailed 10 million catalogs, selling 24,000 SKUs, 6,000 of which are proprietary products. They now ship products to customers in all 50 states and in 55 countries.

Earlier this year, the husband-and-wife team bought the Celebration Fantastic (CF) gift catalog, their third acquisition in only four years. Says Shep Moyle of the CF purchase: “They have a wonderful brand image in the gift market.” The acquisition also diversifies the company’s seasonality, since the primary selling season for the Stumps catalog is the first half of the year, while the CF season is the latter half, says Shep. “It will enable us to gain some efficiencies in infrastructure usage.”

In 2000, the Moyles bought SpiritLine, a Dallas-based catalog, and in 1998, they purchased Glass Branders a glass-decorating company in Toledo, OH.

Warehousing, fulfillment, creative and call center operations for all of the titles are done at Stumps’ headquarters in South Whitley, IN, where the Moyles own a 200,000-square-foot distribution center. In addition, a Taiwan-based sourcing office employs eight people.

The Moyles bought the company in 1990 from Shep’s father. “It fit our strengths in creative and marketing skills,” Shep recounts. Today, the Moyles split their duties in running the company. Wendy oversees marketing, merchandising and creative. “And Shep handles everything else,” she says. While the Moyles don’t release their annual revenues, they did say corporate-wide sales have more than doubled in the last four years, and they predict continued strong sales in the future.

Stephen Lett, president of Lett Direct, a catalog consulting company, recommended Stumps for this award. In nominating the Moyles, he highlighted their cataloging expertise: “Their merchandising is brilliant. They have hired the best talent available—professionals with catalog backgrounds and experience. The Moyles excel by doing things right and making the investments necessary to be successful. They’ve also developed a winning strategy, which they have stuck to.”

Lett is not the only business professional impressed by this particular company. In 1999, Stumps was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst and Young, and it was recognized as one of Indiana’s 100 fastest-growing companies.

Stumps’ Greatest Challenges

1. To continue to recruit world-class talent to handle the company’s growth. “It’s particularly important for our merchandising arena because of all the proprietary and unique products we offer,” says Shep. To help attract and retain a high-quality staff, the Moyles are initiating numerous incentives, including building a corporate fitness center on site.

2. Select and manage terrific business opportunities when they arise. The recent acquisition of the Celebration Fantastic catalog is a good example, says Wendy. “It’s critical that we integrate that operation smoothly into ours. The challenge is to keep the titles and the brands distinct.”

The Industry’s Greatest Challenges

1. Lack of innovation among catalogs. “Retail is increasingly becoming theater,” says Shep Moyle. Customers want a shopping experience, one that is emotional and fun. And they want to see that fun not just in the product presentation but in the actual products themselves.”

2. Postage increases. “Hopefully our leaders in Washington will eventually understand that we, as catalogers, will find efficient ways to reach our customers, and it may or may not be via the U.S. Postal Service,” says Shep.

3. Getting to know the Web customer a bit better. The difficulty, Wendy Moyle says, is that catalogers frequently don’t know how e-commerce customers find their sites. Therefore, getting a clear picture of this particular demographic is especially difficult. “All catalogers, including us, will have to tackle this issue eventually,” she predicts.

Honorable Mentions:

• Don Kotula, CEO, Northern Tool & Equipment catalog

• Tom Shipley, president, T.Shipley

CATALOG ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR

Bill Miller, president, Eziba catalog

While retailing veteran Bill Miller didn’t start the Eziba catalog, he is widely credited with turning a brilliant and timely concept—selling imported handicrafts to American consumers via the Internet—into a multichannel operation that now includes print catalogs and retail sales.

Eziba, launched as a Web site in 1999, is the brainchild of Dick Sabot, an internationally known development economist and co-founder of Tripod.com, and Amber Chand, the long-time director of the shop at the Williams College Museum of Art and a specialist in sourcing handmade crafts from developing countries.

Chand wanted to import crafts for resale in the United States, and Sabot saw the solution as a Web site dedicated to such an endeavor.

“The international market for imported handcrafted goods is enormous,” Sabot said back in 1999. “Some estimates put it at $80 to $100 billion. But it’s a market that’s geographically fragmented.”

Miller was recruited from his job as executive vice president at FAO Schwarz where he had been instrumental in repositioning the company’s catalog operations and increasing its customer-loyalty programs.

Before his 10-year stint with FAO Schwarz, Miller had worked for seven years in the purchasing department at Macy’s East. He went to work at Eziba only five months after the Web site had gone live.

“I came here because I was looking for a combination of factors in my next job,” Miller recounts. “The products had to be good, and many of Eziba’s items are exclusive. Product offerings had to have a high margin so as to sustain healthy sales revenue and growth. And I wanted to help people.

“Many of the artisans whose crafts we sell live in developing nations,” he continues, “and we introduce their work to U.S. buyers. That was the deal-clincher for me.”

Under his experienced leadership, the North Adams, MA-based company:

• launched a print catalog in 2000;

• mailed 6 million books last year and expects to mail 9 million this year;

• tripled the company’s sales in 2001;

• garnered a 12-month housefile of 100,000 names; and

• recruited executives from other catalog companies, including J. Peterman, Sundance and L.L. Bean.

In addition, this small start-up and its unique products have garnered publicity that other catalogers would drool over. Eziba’s products have been featured in the editorial sections of The New York Times, Bon Appetit magazine, The Oprah Magazine, Time, Forbes.com and House Beautiful.

Miller gives credit for the favorable publicity to Chand, who works full-time for the catalog, overseeing its public relations and other initiatives, including the program “Gifts That Give Back.”

In this monthly program, a portion of the sale of specific items goes to a designated nonprofit organization. For example, a percentage of the proceeds from South African-made safety pin bracelets went to a women’s cooperative in that country.

This year, Eziba expanded its beneficiaries to include nonprofit groups targeting violence against women, hunger, AIDS, breast cancer and families of those killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

“Some of these nonprofit groups have passionate followers,” says Miller, “so establishing this program was not only the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, it’s good for marketing and building a loyal customer base, too.”

Miller’s extensive experience in retail marketing is coming in handy at Eziba. The company opened a retail outlet store in its hometown of North Adams, and in April, sales were double plan, he says.

And earlier this year, Eziba began leasing floor space at the ABC Carpet & Home store at 888 Broadway in New York City.

“In only two months, sales are already 25 percent above plan,” says Miller, “and we’re bringing in more money per square foot than the ABC store in which it resides.”

In all, Miller projects this multichannel strategy will enable Eziba to grow five times over current sales in the next 24 months. Indeed, he plans to expand his square footage in the Broadway store, as well as open similar setups in ABC stores in Florida and New Jersey.

“For us, retail is a way for customers to see the unique nature of our products,” he says. “It offers us a unified brand across all channels.

“And as a well-known brand,” he continues, “you can build a core group of loyal customers, especially in those regions where you have a high concentration of catalog drops.”

New York City is Eziba’s biggest market, Miller notes.

Retail holds a special appeal for Miller. “You have to be both creative and analytical to be good at it,” he says.

“In any given day, I bounce back and forth between the two spheres, and I love that aspect of the business. Plus, at the end of the day at Eziba, you know you’re helping people.”

Eziba’s Greatest Challenges

1. To grow the business responsibly and maximize dollars spent. To help, executives at the 3-year-old company are digging into demographic analysis with the lists they rent. “For example, we’re modeling as profitably as we can,” says Miller.

2. Making products accessible to customers. “We’re offering more environmental shots in our print and online catalogs, for example, showing handcrafted home furnishings in real-life settings,” he explains. “In this way, customers with, say, more traditional home décor, can see how our items will look in such a setting. Many people want to buy culturally interesting and globally sourced products. We show them how to decorate with those items.”

3. Sourcing products from overseas is challenging enough. But buying from small workshops and individual artisans in developing nations is particularly problematic. To meet this challenge, Eziba forecasts relatively far in advance, especially with artisans who can’t ramp up production quickly. Another strategy that seems to work well: Eziba contracts with artisan co-ops in countries such as South Africa, India and Indonesia. This helps the catalog rely less on individual artisans and more on groups of production personnel. “As demand for their crafts grow, the co-ops can increase their artisan membership,” Miller explains.

The Industry’s Greatest Challenge

Postage increases. Like all catalogers, Miller looks to save by trimming catalog sizes and weights. “But as catalogers, we also need to learn how to mail most effectively. Some catalogers mail too many books,” Miller says. “Cost structures and ROI will continue to be big drivers of the industry’s success.”

Honorable Mention:

• Timothy Joseph, catalog and Internet director, Woolrich

• Matt Diamond, Jim Johnson and Sam Grades, founders, Alloy

CATALOG LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Irwin Helford, chairman emeritus, Viking Office Products catalog, and vice chairman (retired), Office Depot

Few executives get the chance to fundamentally alter the direction of their companies. Even fewer change their industries forever. Irwin Helford is one of a rare breed of visionaries whose insights, energy and initiatives helped turn the catalog industry into the multi-billion a year business that it is today.

Helford created the first office products catalog back in the early 1960s when he worked as the general manager for the Reliable Corp. Prior to that, office products didn’t have a direct marketing channel. Helford saw the vast potential, and during the next 24 years, Reliable’s annual sales grew to $40 million, and catalogs were its primary driver.

In 1984, Rolf Ostern, founder of Viking Office Products, recruited Helford away from Reliable. Although Viking was, at the time, a smaller company than Reliable, Helford made the jump because he saw the opportunity to put some of his business ideas into action.

He recalls: “I had known Rolf for many years by then, and I was confident in him. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: to be president and COO. I could build the company my way and put into practice my ideas about how to treat customers well to gain their business. I knew that Rolf had built a war chest of cash that enabled us to put these ideas into action.”

And So the Stage Was Set

Under Helford’s leadership, Viking Office Products’ sales went from $13 million in 1984 when he came on board, to a whopping $1.7 billion in 1998 when the company merged with Office Depot to form the world’s largest seller of office products. Along the way, Helford and his Viking team revolutionized cataloging.

In 1991, they began using sophisticated database marketing and printing techniques to send individualized catalog covers to customers. The offers on those covers were based on what Viking staffers knew those particular customers would want to buy and when. For example, if a customer bought a copier from Viking, that client later would get a customized catalog cover touting a special offer on the toner used by that type of copier at about a time it was estimated the customer’s toner supply was about to run out. In this way, says Helford, the company became viewed by many customers as their office-supplies partner.

In 1992, Viking began offering same-day delivery in major metropolitan regions. Also that year, the company opened a call center and distribution center in Paris, France, after a successful startup in the United Kingdom in 1990. Today, Viking serves customers not only across the United States but also in Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Spain.

Says Helford about the overseas ventures, “It was terrific to seize the opportunities that we did in Europe. Up until that time, the Europeans were really behind in some of the catalog operations that we already had here in the States. By exporting our ideas, such as keeping our word and delivering on our promises, our business in Europe exploded and now comprises two-thirds of Viking’s sales.”

Helford and his team also put into practice numerous strategies that helped strengthen and solidify customer loyalty. For example, they began offering:

• one-year unconditional guarantees on everything sold;

• hassle-free, no-questions-asked returns (Viking staffers even will go to a customer’s site free of charge to pick up the merchandise to be returned); and

• a 30-day trial period on any product.

Helford took Viking public, and the company’s stock traded on the NASDAQ for eight years before its merger with Office Depot. During those years, Viking investors enjoyed three two-for-one stock splits and consistent double-digit revenue and income growth.

Although Helford now is retired from Viking, he remains a consultant for the company. Presently, he is busy with numerous philanthropic endeavors. He is on the board of directors for three agencies dedicated to helping those with Parkinson’s disease, including the Michael J. Fox Foundation. And he recently donated $36 million to the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA. The donation, the largest ever for the renowned cancer research center, will be used to help build a new hospital, the Betty and Irwin Helford Clinical Research Hospital, scheduled to open in 2004. In addition, Helford is involved in a Chicago-based venture capital fund.

At this stage of his life, Helford says, he is simply enjoying his free time. “It’s been a long time since I could sit down and have breakfast with my wife every morning.”

In nominating Helford, Rex Ciavola, senior vice president of global marketing operations for Office Depot, noted: “Irwin’s concept of ‘fanatical’ customer service revolutionized the standard of service in the catalog industry … . We firmly believe that because of him and Viking, business buyers have a different appreciation for, and confidence in, purchasing supplies by catalog.”

Advice for Catalog Entrepreneurs

1. Don’t be a “me-too” cataloger, says Helford. Ask yourself: What is your company’s reason for existence? Why should customers buy from you and not from someone else? You must give people reasons to become and remain customers.”

2. Focus on one customer at a time, not on the masses.

3. Tie your catalog and your Web site together, and allow customers to choose by which method they want to buy from you. “Remember, the Internet doesn’t create business; your print catalog does. The goal should be to bond those two channels together.”

The Industry’s Greatest Challenges

1. Generic-looking catalogs. “I believe that 95 percent of today’s catalogs are doomed to failure,” says Helford. “They’re following the one-size-fits-all model that simply won’t work in the future. Those that will survive will offer products that are unique to a customer’s needs. Why run 14 pages of toner products and send that catalog to a customer who doesn’t even own the machines that use those types of toner? The future is in individualized and personalized catalogs. If a customer wants to see only certain types of fashion that’s all that should be included in the catalogs you mail to her.”

2. Thinking that response rates of only 1 to 10 percent warrant opening the champagne bottle. “People are turned off by the catalog glut. They call it junk mail! When that many catalogs are thrown out, it’s bad for business and bad for the environment—and as catalogers, we’re paying for all of that waste.” Targeting catalogs correctly with the right products to the right customer at the right time should reverse traditional response rates—and more importantly, earn each customer’s loyalty, says Helford.

Honorable Mentions:

• Lillian Vernon, founder, Lillian Vernon catalog

• Jack Rosenfeld, CEO, Potpourri catalog