Front-Runner

Despite this year’s difficult environment, the company is roughly 4 percent ahead of last year’s sales total of around $14 million.

“We were looking ahead, trying to figure out how we could get our hands around the postage costs,” Hodges says. “And this was the only thing that really came along, because when we started talking about reducing circ to keep things under control, we didn’t really like the effect that we thought that that was going to lead to: reduced sales. I don’t think I can replace the catalog with the Web yet. So it wasn’t an option to say, ‘We’re going to cut the catalog by 50 percent and double our e-mailing.’”