International Strategy

Plain and simple, Canada is booming. If your year-to-year sales to Canada aren’t up more than 100 percent, you’re missing out.
A couple of months ago, I discussed the meteoric rise of the Canadian dollar and the opportunities this presented for U.S. catalogers. Having just returned from a trip to Canada, I’m pleased to report the Canadian market is showing even more potential than I’d previously thought. The strength of the loonie, the Canadian dollar, is a matter of national pride these days. Everyone in Canada is talking about cross-border shopping and travel. I’ve never known the focus on “what you can buy for

Over the past few months, we at Catalog Success have been hard at work to further develop a hefty well of research data for our readers. In October we launched the Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, a quarterly series of original benchmarking research we’ve been conducting with the multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. In the coming months, we’ll also be running a series of mail volume charts provided by several catalog co-op databases. Like the Latest Trends surveys, these will run in the IndustryEye section of our print magazine. And for the past year or so, we’ve been running a regular reader poll.

1. Place more emphasis on your exclusive merchandise. 2. Exploit the “collectible” mentality that may be inherent in your product. 3. Emphasize guarantees, security policies and anything that makes your customers feel safer shopping with you. 4. Promote special offers, freebies and premiums that make your customers feel special. 5. Mail an exclusive, smaller-sized catalog to special customers introducing them to a new or special niche product. 6. Include Web sales drivers to encourage browsers to look at your entire assortment. 7. Incorporate a slim-jim format for sale or clearance items rather than changing the size of your main catalog. This can serve

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.

With the Internet transforming even the smallest catalogers into worldwide marketing companies, virtually every business at some time or another will be forced to handle international orders. While the process certainly is more elaborate than it is for domestic shipments, it’s not rocket science: Do your homework, avoid unexpected costs. “Today, it’s relatively easy to market and ship overseas,” says Richard Miller, managing partner at North Chatham, Mass.-based Market Response International, an international direct marketing consulting and research firm, and also executive director of the International Mailers’ Advisory Group. Mailers’ ability to communicate quickly with customers, acknowledge receipt of orders and address problems “has become

As has been its annual custom, B-to-B list firm MeritDirect’s annual co-op event in White Plains, N.Y. on July 12 was kicked off by a provocative and entertaining presentation by catalog veteran and futurist Don Libey. Having heard Don speak plenty of times in the past (and despite his frequent speaking appearances, rarely does he repeat a single concept, strategy or idea), I’ve long since learned how to filter through his motivational pep talk and the meat of what he delivers. While always entertaining, his shtick is always chockfull of meat, but it often looks beyond tomorrow. And after all, we all want to

Catalogers’ Updates PetSmart: The multichannel pet supplies retailer in late April sold its State Line Tack equine assets to PetsUnited, a holding company for a Web-based marketer of pet and equine products, including Dog.com, Fish.com and Horse.com. PetsUnited plans to move the State Line Tack online and catalog business from Brockport, N.Y., to its Hazelton, Pa., facility by July. Cutter & Buck: This apparel cataloger/designer in April agreed to be acquired by the Sweden-based New Wave Group AB, a designer/marketer of assorted apparel lines for the corporate promotional and consumer retail markets in Europe. Under New Wave Group’s ownership, Cutter & Buck

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

TORONTO — For a good many years, I’ve periodically covered the Canadian catalog/direct/multichannel market — all, of course, from a U.S. perspective. Dating back to the early 1990s, I reported on catalogers’ experiences in expanding into Canada, usually focusing on brand-new efforts. More often than not, the results looked encouraging, the outlook appeared great. Most surveys showed that Canada was the number 1 logical choice for international expansion among catalogers. Yet, here we are in 2007, and finding catalogers that do any sort of truly significant business in Canada is just about as challenging as getting a ticket to a Stanley Cup playoff hockey

Catalog Success Editor in Chief Paul Miller caught up with J.C. Penney Chairman/CEO Myron “Mike” Ullman during last week’s National Retail Federation convention in New York. Ullman touched on several topics, including Penney’s multichannel advances and its ability to thrive while other big book catalog retailers were forced to redefine themselves over the years. Catalog Success: How do you see the role of your big book catalog changing? Ullman: We have a number of specialty catalogs and that’s where our growth has been. Our big book is still important; it still plays a role, especially among our more loyal customers, and it’s still successful. Catalog Success: How