How a sharpened focus on the market let Terri Alpert carve out new niches for her two catalog businesses, Uno Alla Volta and Cooking Enthusiast

By Mark Del Franco

For the two brands, not concentrating on the Web earlier represented a missed opportunity. “We did have a Web site,” Alpert insists of the early days, “just not a great one. It’s a question of priorities: Too many top priorities and you simply fail at a lot of things.”

As for a potential brand launch and/or acquisition, which the company’s been quietly pursuing, Alpert won’t reveal specifics now, but says proprietary product and housefile synergies are a must. “I want to get the foundation strong,” she says. “I’m always worried about the crashing and burning.”