Masters of Reinvention

Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s, Paul Fredrick was beginning to rock and roll. He never imagined that the dollar would tank against the yen or that the Japanese stock market bubble would burst. But both events seriously depressed that side of the merchant’s business.

While catalogs are no longer printed in Japanese, Paul Fredrick still has a loyal cadre of about 7,500 24-month buyers from the region, representing about 4 percent of total revenues.