A Chat With May’s Profile, Suzanne Vlietstra, president of Hobby Horse Clothing Co.

CS: What has Hobby Horse Clothing done to offset the rising costs associated with mailing a catalog today?
SV: We kind of have to mail those catalogs. I’d say the main thing we’ve done to counteract the kind of random, slapshot increases is try and make a better catalog, to be very honest. We have a beautiful catalog. Because we mail so few of them and because people keep it, it’s kind of, they treat it a little more like a book than a catalog. We use really heavy paper, we have a beautiful coated cover. And with that “magalogish” format, people hang on to it and value it different than, “Oh, I already got this one,” and flip it into the trash. There’s a bit of a “boutiquey” kind of approach to it. Which is again another random happy accident. But honestly, in terms of operations, there’s not a lot you can do about the cost of postage. We try and analyze our list and try and mail to our best prospects, but because we know we’re supporting the stores, we’re much more generous in who we continue to mail to than most catalogers would be. Because we don’t have a great way to analyze it.