E-Commerce

The recent enviable growth of The J. Jill Group (formerly DM Manage-ment) has been one of this year’s catalog success stories. Second-quarter results for 1999 showed that sales were up 31 percent over the prior year, while operating income was up 43 percent. With catalog sales going strong to the tally of $143 million for the first half of 1999, The J. Jill Group has planned new initiatives: an expansion into e-commerce in August 1999 and retail stores in 2000. The Tilton, NH-based specialty women’s apparel direct marketer has gotten much attention for the lifestyle marketing approach to its two catalogs, J. Jill and

About this time nine years ago I was getting set to be married, so I registered my china and crystal patterns with a Big Department Store’s bridal registry. Then, a funny thing happened: I started receiving boxes at my home from someplace called Ross-Simons. “What store is this?” I asked my mother, for while it carried the precise gifts I had selected, I had neither been there nor heard of it. “It’s not a store. It’s a catalog,” she replied. More recently, in the fall of 1997 my sister was wed. For her bridal registry, she chose to skip the Big Department