All About Roi

Merchants are losing $100 billion in fraud losses due to unauthorized transactions and fees/interest associated with chargebacks, according to the 2009 LexisNexis True Cost of Fraud Study, which surveyed more than 1,000 merchants, financial institution executives and 4,800 consumers.

In a session at last month's All About eMail Virtual Conference & Expo, presented by our sister publication eM+C, Megan Walsh, email marketing manager for home furnishings retailer Williams-Sonoma, provided a checklist of creative best practices to help email marketers optimize return on investment. Here's a recap of Walsh's presentation.

This week in the fourth and final part of our coverage of the recent All About ROI webinar, Good Data is Good Business!, sponsored by Stibo Systems, we conclude our recap of the presentation from Simon Rodrigue, associate vice president of e-commerce for Sears Canada. Specifically, we offer up steps four and five of Rodrigue's five critical steps to data integration.

Green Mountain Coffee has made social media a key element in its web endeavors, and on Oct. 7, its director of consumer direct, Ken Crites, explained the Waterbury, Vt.-based company’s approach during the Hudson Valley Direct Marketing Association’s fall luncheon in Greenwich, Conn.

During a session at the Sept. 16-18 NEMOA Fall Conference in Mashantucket, Conn., a panel of marketers offered up more than 60 rapid-fire pointers and questions on how to survive in “a risky economy.” The panelists included Jean Giesmann, executive creative director for Stony Creek Brands; Chris Bradley, president of Cuddledown of Maine; Sharon Dunn, president of Duncraft; and Glenda Lehman Ervin, vice president of marketing for Lehman’s.

Stan Krangel, president of the MKC Catalog/Internet division of Blyth Inc., which also operates the Exposures, Boca Java, The Home Marketplace, Walter Drake and As We Change catalogs, outlined several ways to roll with the punches this year and next in a session during the Sept. 16-18 NEMOA Fall Conference in Mashantucket, Conn. As proof, he injected how he’s modernized things at Miles Kimball over the past couple of years.

This week in the third part of our coverage of the recent webinar from All About ROI, Good Data is Good Business!, sponsored by Stibo Systems, we continue our recap of the presentation from Simon Rodrigue, associate vice president of e-commerce for Sears Canada. Specifically, we offer up step three of Rodrigue's five critical steps to data integration. To access this webinar on-demand, click here.)

By and large, attendees at industry conferences throughout at least the first half of this year had something of a bewildered look. Kind of a “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” sort of thing going on. Then again, so too did just about anyone in this country amid the brutal recession. But perhaps the Fall NEMOA Conference, held last week at the gaudy Foxwoods Casino complex in Mashantucket, Conn., showed signs of a new, more encouraged, more aggressive attitude among attendees and speakers.

The two-year-old American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) trudges along like a little engine that could. But can it? Despite its newness and relatively tiny membership, this organization has delivered an effective wake-up call to both the USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on the plight of catalog mailers, helping foster the recent postal “summer sale.”

The two-year-old American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) trudges along like a little engine that could. But can it? Despite its newness and relatively tiny membership, this organization has delivered an effective wake-up call to both the USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on the plight of catalog mailers, helping foster the recent postal “summer sale.”

Continuing our coverage of the recent webinar from All About ROI, Good Data is Good Business!, sponsored by Stibo Systems, this week we recap the presentation of Simon Rodrigue, associate vice president of e-commerce for Sears Canada. In particular, we begin to break down Rodrigue's five critical steps to product data integration.

It's no secret these days that data is critical for marketers looking to optimize profits. What isn't so readily available is the best ways for retailers to collect and manage their data. In a webinar last week from All About ROI, Good Data is Good Business!, sponsored by Stibo Systems, two retailers — Timothy Holody, COO of Seta Corp., parent company of multichannel jewelry marketer PalmBeach Jewelry, and Simon Rodrigue, associate vice president of e-commerce for Sears Canada — discussed how their companies make the most of their data. (To access the webinar on-demand, click here.)

Blair Corp., a budget-priced apparel marketer for mature consumers, has a lengthy history in traditional direct mail and catalog. At the eTail Conference in Baltimore this morning, this unit of conglomerate Orchard Brands rolled out its new president/CEO, Shelley Nandkeolyar, who discussed his take on Blair’s approach to the economic downturn.

Hopefully, you’ve been keeping up with our coverage of a no-holds-barred, all-telling session during MeritDirect’s recent Business Mailers Co-op in White Plains, N.Y., in which four B-to-B mailers discussed how they’re surviving the current economic malaise and their plans for emerging from it once the economy turns around. In part 1 of this recap last week, we detailed how they’re holding up. In part 2, they discussed how they’re preparing for better times ahead.

Dr. Alan Rimm-Kaufman, a longtime catalog marketer and former Catalog Success columnist who leveraged a successful career as vice president of marketing with the Crutchfield catalog to run a trailblazing paid search management agency, died on July 18 at age 41 after a 16-year battle with leukemia.