E-Commerce

With the much dreaded postal rate increase taking effect this month, hopefully by now most catalogers have made at least some of the adjustments needed to continue to grow — or at least survive. As we’re in the heart of the industry’s conference season, many have been feasting on scores of postal cost-cutting tips coming from presentations, special emergency sessions and the media. For our part, after breaking the news on our Web site (www.CatalogSuccess.com) about the Postal Regulatory Commission’s punishing catalog rate increase that was more or less hidden in its rate recommendation to the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors,

Scratching your head over the interaction between your online and offline marketing efforts? Not sure how much to advertise online? Unclear of the true impact of your catalog mailings? You’re not alone. This column won’t completely solve these puzzles, but it’ll offer some relevant ideas. How Much to Advertise First, assume you’ve already established your high-level financial goals, either for your online program or for the business as a whole. Such goals should be specific, numeric and time-based. Be sure the whole team understands and buys into these goals, and works toward meeting them each week. Typical goals are profit-and-loss-based, and include a revenue

At the turn of this century, cataloging — and all retailing for that matter — was revolutionized by the emergence of e-commerce. Shopping at home became easier than ever, and consumers warmed up to the concept of wielding their purchasing power with the click of a mouse. Today, so many orders are coming in online that it’s becoming difficult for some catalogers to recall the times when they were all but completely reliant on their call centers for order-taking. Your Web site, however, isn’t just a vehicle through which orders can be taken and processed more efficiently; it’s a powerful data-gathering tool that an

In the mid ’90s, Louis Stack, founder and president of Fitter International, was like many people — he’d never seen a Web site. Then a Web developer from Florida offered to create one for his Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based company that sells balance and fitness equipment around the world. By 1997 — the same year Stack’s catalog, Fitterfirst, was launched — the site was downloading orders. Today, Fitterfirst also sells products from a retail store attached to its headquarters, and through 2,500 international dealers and wholesalers. Like plenty of other multichannel marketers in North America, Stack’s challenge these days is in coordinating his company’s multichannel efforts.

It’s perhaps surprising to see people so attentive to their work at a company known for emptying out when there’s good surf to be found at a Southern Californian beach not five minutes away. But a walk through the Ventura, Calif.-based headquarters of Patagonia reveals a close-knit staff readily engaged in designing, testing and marketing this outdoor cataloger’s apparel and gear. Then again, perhaps it’s not all that surprising, given that the catalog’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, in his book “Let My People Go Surfing,” (The Penguin Press, 2005) wrote: “Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. We all had to

For years now, Garnet Hill, a Franconia, N.H.-based apparel and home furnishings cataloger, has placed follow-up calls whenever customers encounter a problem with the company. Specifically, 24 to 48 hours after a customer complaint, Garnet Hill calls the customer and casually asks how the problem was handled and if it was resolved. Smart and sensitive upselling techniques make Garnet Hill’s customers feel cared about. Liberal employee discounts have its employees wearing the clothing and using the products it sells, so it’s easy for them to personalize the experience. This “touchy-feely” group has products open and laying around so reps literally can get their

Continuing our coverage of the Canadian market begun in Catalog Success’ The Corner View e-newsletter last week (see www.catalogsuccess.com/story/story.bsp?sid=53237&var=story#cornerview ), we came across a new survey released by Statistics Canada, which found that 2006 online sales for Canadian companies reporting them rose 40 percent to $49.9 billion. It was the fifth consecutive year of double-digit increases. More than 19,000 public and private companies were surveyed for the report. The majority of the 2006 sales, about 68 percent, were business-to-business sales. Four sectors account for most of the e-commerce activity in Canada: manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, and both wholesale trade and retail trade. The survey

In a roundtable discussion held on April 11 during a Hudson Valley DMA luncheon in Greenwich, Conn., Hanover Direct Vice President of Corporate Marketing Amy Schilder led a group on the best practices involved in partnership marketing. Specifically, she pointed out that partnerships with other marketing companies require several key components in order for them to work for both parties. Below are several take-away pointers from the discussion in which she focused primarily on Hanover’s own partnership with Sears, in which Sears offers a line of clothing from Hanover’s Silhouettes catalog. * Make sure both partners’ goals are in line with one another. In the Sears-Silhouettes

A recent survey by BIGresearch shows that more and more consumers are doing their own product/shopping research online prior to making purchases. The survey revealed that 89.4 percent of consumers regularly or occasionally research products online prior to buying them in a store. Among the findings by individual product category are the following: 41.1 percent said they’re most likely to research electronic items; 19.8 percent appliances; 19.7 percent medicines/vitamins; and 16.1 percent home improvement items. For more information, go to www.bigresearch.com .

For this edition, I perused several catalog Web sites to see how good a job catalogers do in explaining who they are. Naturally, many consumers want to get a good idea of who they’re doing business with. If your company comes off in something of a faceless manner, some might be put off. On the other hand, consumers take heart in knowing where you’re located, what you’re all about, where you’re coming from and in some cases, who founded you. It’s a fairly easy thing to do, especially on the Web. By in large, I found that most handle their “about this company”