Merchandising

The exterior view portrayed a strong, stable company — a well-oiled machine churning along toward future profits and continued success. The interior showed an entirely different story — a company crumbling just like one of its cookies. Mrs. Fields’ early success actually led to the downturn of its catalog direct/online unit. With that early success and rapid growth, Mrs. Fields didn’t invest properly in the infrastructure (marketing database, systems, tracking) of the direct division, says Greg Berglund, president of Salt Lake City-based Mrs. Fields Gifts. What’s more, the company failed to keep product offerings fresh and relevant, especially the refreshing of photography and item

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.

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

Reading retail sales, housing sales and consumer confidence reports the past couple of weeks while watching the stock market sink, I’ve become quite worried about the outlook for the holiday season for catalog/multichannel marketers. Retailers collectively reported their worst October in 12 years, and a Conference Board report last week said consumer confidence dropped in early November to its lowest level since Hurricane Katrina triggered soaring oil prices two years ago. Meanwhile, recent reports from the National Association of Realtors showed sales of existing homes had plunged to their lowest level in nearly a decade. None of this bodes well for catalogers. So

Many multichannel merchants focus on how they can lower operating costs when they consider outsourcing certain tasks. But when you outsource operations, you also outsource the investment. Sounds obvious, but maybe the magnitude isn’t all that clear until you’re faced with replacing an order-management system, moving into a new fulfillment space or upgrading your Web site. When outsourcing your investment, you don’t have to invest in those upgrades as your business grows and changes. Let’s look at some examples that show the size of these investments. * Order-management systems. Software as a service (SaaS) can free up a potential investment of $25,000 for an

Say what you will about this wonderful trade we call the catalog/multichannel business, but whichever way you spin it, you can’t go very far if you’re unprofitable. That’s why above all else — the marketing, the merchandising, the creative, the e-commerce, etc. — we’re most interested in helping our readers make more money. So we bring you our annual binge of tactics and tips extracted from all of this year’s issues of Catalog Success, our weekly e-newsletter Idea Factory and our biweekly idea exchange e-newsletter, The Corner View. Our editorial staff went through every article we’ve produced this year to give you a nice,

To effectively reach the increasingly cross-channel shopping customer, merchants must understand the difference between multichannel merchandising and dynamic cross-channel merchandising. Multichannel merchandising usually refers to tactics contained within channels and isolated cross-channel tactics, such as buying online and picking up in stores. Dynamic cross-channel merchandising coordinates multiple channels to gain market share, grow revenue and profits, and increase customer loyalty. It sounds simple, but the industry is filled with much talk and little action. What are the steps merchants need to take to go from siloed actions to dynamic merchandising? 1. Rethink how decisions are made about the four fundamental merchandising considerations:

The first concern to address when prospecting via direct response TV, space ads or inserts, is strategy. Consider two potential approaches: 1. A lead-generating, two-step approach casting a wide net for prospective buyers; or 2. A narrow focus to acquiring buyers by selling “off the page.” The easier and more universal strategy is the lead-generating approach — getting catalog requests or visits to your Web site. However, only a small proportion of the inquiries that see your catalog or Web site will get to step two and place an order. Selling directly from DRTV, space or an insert piece is your

In the September (print) issue of Catalog Success, I discussed the opportunity catalogers and multichannel merchants have to aggressively pursue the older end of baby boomers, some of whom are now in their 60s. In Portland, Maine, on Sept. 20 for the fall NEMOA Conference, I was taken by the opening presentation given by Claire Spofford, senior vice president and chief brand officer for the Orchard Brands unit of Golden Gate Capital, (formerly Appleseed’sTopCo). Having joined Appleseed’s earlier this decade to bring a retail and brand accent to the mature women’s apparel cataloger, Spofford now presides over a thriving multititle multichannel business that’s as

Summer’s almost gone; the holiday season’s creeping up. So besides making sure that shoppers find your site among the tens of thousands of retail sites available to them on the Web, what else can you do to ensure you’re ready when shoppers start searching for holiday gifts? Here are some helpful tips: 1. Figure out what works best for your business. For example, are your shoppers enticed by free shipping offers, or do you need to ship gratis just to be competitive? Do you sell the kinds of items that people tend to give loved ones perennially — namely sweaters, slippers, men’s shirts