E-Catalog: Creating Channel Incentives

Attempting to market across multiple channels, catalogers have been using myriad marketing methods to drive sales to particular channels and across channels. While the promotions can be effective, they are hard to track. Netcentives, a loyalty and e-mail marketing solutions company, is offering catalogers a new way of following customers’ buying habits, creating more effective marketing campaigns and encouraging multi-channel shopping with its program Retail Rewards.

Customers join Retail Rewards by registering their credit card with their favorite catalogers to receive rewards for their purchases in any channel.

Catalogers who join the program create a customer credit card registration page on their sites. They then reward customers with such incentive currencies as promotional rebates, gift cards and points. Catalogers also can use the program to track shopping behavior across channels and provide targeted e-mail and direct mail incentives using Retail Rewards.

Netcentives maintains all the customer registrations, administers the rewards to customers of participating catalogers and manages transactional reporting and analysis. Through its recent acquisition of Universal Value Network, Netcentives has daily access to approximately 90 percent of all U.S. sources of payment card transactions.

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers who visit a retailer’s Web site and then buy from the retail store spend 33 percent more on an annual basis than the average bricks-and-mortar customer.

“Netcentives’ Retail Rewards system enables merchants to expand their customer base, and more importantly, build and retain long-term customer relationships by offering incentives no matter where customers shop,” says West Shell, Netcentives chairman and chief executive officer.

No technical integration is necessary for catalogers. All data are processed securely and managed by Netcentives’ backend, which verifies payment card transactions, awards incentives for each consumer purchase, and manages transaction reporting and analysis.

Among those already using Retail Rewards: The Sharper Image, Jos. A. Bank, Magellan’s, Natural Wonders, T. Shipley, Paul Fredrick and Travel Tools.

For more information, visit: www.netcentives.com.

Build Your Business Online

A handful of catalogers now are doing up to 30 percent of their total sales online. They are melding their offline know-how with technology to enjoy high buyer-conversion rates, increase sales across their shopping channels and move their customers to a less-expensive medium: the Web.

Newport News recently was recognized in a Forbes “Best of the Web” article for its 18.7 percent customer conversion rate, which is higher than both Amazon’s and eBay’s.

The reason: Newport News took some of its most prized print catalog elements and moved them online. Fry Multimedia, which designed the site, used the elements to optimize the site for selling.

There is only a single mouse click between the product and sizing tips, on-screen texture and color swatches, product availability and predicted ship dates.

Customers know when products are in their shopping carts because thumbnail photos of each item are there. The merchandise photos are linked to shipping charge information, the return policy and Newport News’ money-back guarantee.

The online site includes fashion tips taken from the catalog. And the clothing is searchable by key word, category or catalog order number.

The site effectively cross-merchandises. Each product selected with the mouse is displayed larger on a separate page accompanied by complementary merchandise. Right next to the product is a description, sizing information, and size and color availability. A link to other merchandise available in the picture is provided, as well as special promotions, which are clearly labeled in the selection area.

“We use the Internet to augment our existing business and to expand our brand,” says George Ittner, Newport News president and CEO. “Consumer acceptance has been phenomenal.”