Management

The housing market and employment levels are among the biggest factors economists monitor to get a fix on the state of the economy. Overall retail sales is the other major bellwether, particularly as we head into the fall and holiday seasons. At this point, it's tough to get overly optimistic about an economic recovery for 2009. But amidst the negatives, there are some positive signs on the horizon worth tracking and reacting to.

PATIENT: "Doc, my small company needs to grow — even this year. But I don't want to branch out recklessly and try to be all things to all people. How can I grow my company, remain relevant, but not lose focus of our unique brand?" CATALOG DOCTOR: "It's possible for a small company to grow, even in today's economy. Look at expanding into new programs while improving existing programs as well. Here are prescriptions for both."

The nature of the internet business model allows more centralized inventory control and more efficient order and fulfillment management than a retail store network. And of course with centralized fulfillment, online merchants don’t incur the cost of distributing inventory around the country, or even throughout a region. In addition, they can extend or cancel promotions depending upon demand and inventory levels.

Benchmarking is a set of performance standards for a specific task. Many are standards for all markets, but they need to be adjusted to meet the requirements, limitations and needs of your specific business.

PATIENT: Doc, times are tough and my resources are scarce. How can I be sure I’m using mine well? How can I avoid wasting time, manpower and money? CATALOG DOCTOR: Focus your team on core efforts, and avoid low-impact tasks that might run your projects off the rails. Start by asking these seven waste-avoiding questions:

This year's economic retreat actually stands to help Gaiam, a product and information services company with a heavy emphasis on sustainability, position itself for greater growth in the near future.

Historians eventually will look on last year as the beginning of the end for retail stores (aka fixed asset distribution) as we know them. Holiday ’08 retail sales dipped 5.5 percent to 8 percent from the previous year, the most dramatic decline in decades. Few, if any, retailers projected such drama.

Next month, the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation will honor four winners of its 2009 Rising Stars Awards, as well as credit card payment management platform provider Litle & Co. as its Corporate Commitment award winner.

This month we spoke with John Doheny, CEO of Doheny’s Water Warehouse, the catalog/multichannel pool supplies business his parents started 42 years ago.

In tough times like these, companies often look for Band-Aids to slap over problems so they can get by. This year we all have problems, and the catalog business isn’t immune to them. In many respects, namely the losing battle they continue to fight with the USPS (although at press time, there was a glimmer of hope for postage to be adjusted downward for larger-volume mailers), catalogers are hurting worse than others.