Merchandising

We may be quite far removed from the, “We all wanna change the world” 1960s, but a group of former Lands’ End executives and employees last year did set out to change the world — the world of multichannel apparel sourcing. A year since its formal launch, Fair Indigo, a marketer of casual apparel, has stuck to its passion of complying with the rules of fair trade in apparel manufacturing. Headed by former Lands’ End senior vice president of international and e-commerce, Bill Bass, the Middleton, Wis.-based cataloger/multichannel merchant’s raison d’être is to only use apparel manufacturers that pay more than the

Out-of-stocks are becoming a greater problem in online shopping, according to a May 2007 survey performed by the e-tailing group and BetweenMarkets, The Online Inventory Impact Survey discovered out-of-stock products significantly affect consumers’ behavior online. More than 950 adults (61 percent female) who shop online four or more times a year and spend more than $500 annually were surveyed. Below are the survey’s findings. * 51 percent find products out of stock 25 percent of the time or more; * 62 percent found that clicking on promotional e-mail led to out-of-stock products “once in a while” to “always”; * 48 percent have received

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

I find it surprising how much time and energy gets spent these days on the smallest details of a myriad of marketing communication activities while how little time and attention gets placed on effective product development. At our core, catalogers are merchants live and die by our ability to bring new, exclusive (or at least hard to find) products to the pages of catalogs.
Yet, how much real time, effort and resources is your catalog team allocating to this effort? Here are some guidelines that I highly recommend to you.
1. Challenge your product team to deliver 25 percent-plus of annual sales from

“A couple of years ago,” recalled Ken Harris, CEO of Carson, Calif.-based food gifts cataloger Mrs. Beasley’s, “Mrs. Beasley’s was in the toilet.” But like a rundown West Hollywood apartment overhauled to become a posh and highly sought-after condo, the $17 million Mrs. Beasley’s has undergone a dramatic overhaul over the past couple of years and has turned an 8 percent sales decline into a 25 percent increase. In a session at last week’s ACCM conference in Boston, Harris and two consultants he worked with explained how. The 29-year-old company, which has historically served many Hollywood celebrities and studios (its first-ever customer was Barbra Streisand,

During a session I led at the ACCM conference last week in Boston on how smaller catalogers can compete with the “big guys,” Terry Powers and Mark Mackaman of ComputerGear, a 15-year-old cataloger of computer-related t-shirts, gifts and accessories, said their key to success is “unique product, unique product, unique product.” They emphasized the importance of protecting those products via copyrights, trademarks and patents. The ComputerGear executives also stressed developing efficient operations. They cross-train CSRs to pull, pack and ship, and they make many of their own products, subcontracting manufacturing that they can’t handle efficiently in-house. They also recommended testing at least one thing —

This is my 21st go-round attending ACCM, the Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants (did I get that whole thing right?), being held May 21-23 in Boston. For my first 18, I was part of the assorted parent companies that co-sponsored the event with the DMA. But for the past two, as a press attendee and not a part-host, I’ve picked up a different perspective on this event as well as on some other conferences. Actually, I take that back: This year, I’m sort of a part-host again on the other side of the partnership since I was recently named chairman/editor of the

For companies that ship to residential locations, it may behoove them to take advantage of the U.S. Postal Service, which can still provide cost-effective shipping despite the recent rate increases. That was the message of Alicia Berry, COO of DVD Empire, a Web-based DVD retailer, at a session during the recent National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment in Schaumburg, Ill. “The most important thing you can do to control costs is to figure out where each of your packages is going and how much it costs — the daily numbers,” she said. “That way, you’ll be able to take advantage of what the USPS has

Consumers plan to spend considerably more on Mother’s Day gifts this year compared to last. The National Retail Federation’s 2007 Mother’s Day Consumer Actions and Intentions survey, conducted by BIGresearch, shows that the 84.5 percent of respondents who said they intend to celebrate Mother’s Day will spend an average of $139.14 on mom, compared with last year’s average of $122.16. Below are some other findings from the survey, which drew nearly 7,900 responses. * 37 percent of respondents said plan to buy apparel; combined, they’ll spend nearly $1.6 billion on clothes and accessories * 32.8 percent who said they would buy jewelry will spend $2.1 billion

Although far from new, polls are a greater part of the American fabric than ever before. Consumers have become more comfortable with polls conducted via e-mail, on Web sites and via text messages (as much as I loathe the show, two quick words come to mind here: “American Idol”). In fact, it’s pretty rare these days when we’re not subjected to some sort of poll at least once a week, sometimes even once a day. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Polls aren’t like those delightful 6:30 p.m. telemarketing calls we often have to answer with a mouthful of pasta. They’re there; you