E-Commerce

We bring you our exclusive new Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, the second quarterly joint venture with multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. This one focuses on the key issues in the catalog/multichannel business. As with our inaugural report last October, this survey contains a statistical analysis of a questionnaire we sent to the Catalog Success e-mail list in November. The responses came from 80 B-to-C and 45 B-to-B catalogers. You can click on the separate B-to-C and B-to-B charts below, as well as the cumulative chart. Some percentages don’t quite add up to 100, due to rounding.

The 2nd Catalog Success Latest Trends Report on Key Issues (January 2008)

In the IndustryEye section of this issue on pgs. 12-13, you’ll find our second quarterly Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, a benchmarking survey we conducted in late November in partnership with the multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. This one focuses on key catalog/multichannel issues, and we’ve included most of the charts there, so I encourage you to take a look. You’ll be able to find some charts only on our Web site due to magazine space limitations. We also didn’t have the space to include the numerous comments that you — our readers and survey respondents — wrote in response to two of the questions.

The 2nd Catalog Success Latest Trends Report on Key Issues (January 2008)

Are you on top of today’s hottest ideas in free and paid search? Here are 14 easy-to-implement ways to get your site to the top of everyone’s results. Each could support a full article in its own right, so I’ve also provided additional links to help you dig in further. Free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 1. Social media sites drive links; links drive rankings. Get familiar with Digg (digg.com), StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com), Netscape (netscape.com) and Reddit (reddit.com), because these social-media sites can drive huge traffic. More importantly, that traffic leads to numerous inbound links, which are the rocket fuel powering your organic rankings.

A true story: This past Sunday I decided to order a Christmas gift for our friends Doris and David and another for my cousin Suzy — ideally the same gift for both, something foodie and festive. I went to the following Web sites: Swiss Colony, The Wisconsin Cheeseman, Hickory Farms, Red Cooper, Fortnum & Mason, Amazon.com, See’s Candies, Ghirardelli Chocolate Co., Jelly Belly, Mrs. Field’s Gifts, Figi’s, Dean & DeLuca, Cross Creek Groves, Godiva Chocolatier, and Harry & David. All were happy to take my order for two of the same item. I could not for the life of me figure out how to

I must admit I’ve frequently scrutinized those Lands’ End “ghettos” in Sears stores ever since Sears acquired the pride of Dodgeville, Wis., five and a half years ago. For a few years, Sears tried to sprinkle Lands’ End products amidst its mostly forgettable array of private label and largely undesirable polyester clothing. But I’m happy to report Sears is getting closer to getting the Lands’ End integration thing right. And when I received a 12-page mini-booklet — not quite a catalog, per se — I was truly blown away. The 63⁄4-inch x 51⁄8 inch outer cover wraps around eight 63⁄4 inch x 4 3⁄4

The recently conducted MyBuys Holiday Shopping study by Harris Interactive shows that providing a personalized online shopping experience is inspiring sales this holiday season. The survey’s results show that marketers can attract more customers and increase sales by personalizing their sales pitches. This survey of 2,201 shoppers age 18 and up reveals that 80 percent of respondents have purchased a product when they’ve received a prior product recommendation from a retailer. Yet just 62 percent said those product recommendations were personalized to their tastes. Here are some more highlights from the survey. * 76 percent of those polled received a product recommendation; 84 percent

As the focus of many multichannel catalogers shifts to online sales, it appears many of their Web sites aren’t prepared to handle increased quantities of orders. In a recent survey conducted by Decision Direct Research, the marketing research arm of list firm the Millard Group, consumers said product selection from specific brands meeting their expectations is decreasing. Of the nearly 50,000 online shoppers who completed the survey, 65 percent indicated that product selection doesn’t match what they’ve come to expect from specific brands, a 10 percent drop from last year. Other highlights from the survey follow. * “Excellent” scores for the “unique product not

While technology makes many things easier, it also can complicate your job. And as the Internet — and all that goes with it — has evolved over the past dozen years or so, catalogers’ jobs have become a lot more complex. Beyond merely becoming e-commerce and multichannel marketing experts, catalogers must pay closer attention to analytics and constantly reconsider how they allocate their marketing budgets. Ask any multichannel merchant and you’ll hear the same thing: The rubber stamp has no role in making marketing plans these days. The ongoing changes in e-commerce force catalogers to constantly reinvent the wheel. Add the killer postage increase