Merchandising

Not many start-up catalogs can boast annual sales de-mand of more than $50 million, a one-year housefile-growth rate of a whopping 126 percent, and more than 300,000 12-month buyers. But that’s just what Crossing Pointe, the newest division of Blair Corp., has so far achieved during its first three and a half years in operation. Crossing Pointe’s mission has been to bring younger, more affluent customers to its 94-year-old parent company, Warren, PA-based Blair Corp. Officials at Blair, a veritable stalwart in the direct mail industry and the eighth largest consumer apparel cataloger in the United States, wanted to broaden their customer base, and

Problem: Before Ward’s Natural Science could expand its catalog operations to the Internet, it needed to develop a central repository for the accompanying data for its more than 18,000 products. Solution: Ward’s installed Pindar Systems’ content management system. Data for all products are now stored in one central database. Results: Ward’s launched an e-commerce site that has resulted in increased overall sales; employees have saved significant time in their data-management processes; and Ward’s was able to reduce two full-time positions. When executives at Ward’s Natural Science decided to expand the catalog operations to the Internet, they knew they’d need one central product database

In times when response rates suffer and average order values decline, earning a profit in cataloging can be more of a challenge than normal. In this environment, your expenses (e.g., marketing costs, overhead, fulfillment) become a larger percentage of sales, thus leaving few, if any, percentage points left for profit. Although there are many things you can do to check overhead expenses and keep marketing costs at a minimum, there’s one line on your profit and loss statement that can have the biggest impact on your ability to make money: cost of goods sold (COGS). Before taking the steps to improve your

Maintaining a sound balance between assortment, price points and gross margin is a difficult task for any cataloger to master. Add to the job the “clanging” of other variables — such as the mix between new and repeat products, imports vs. domestically sourced items, branded vs. private-label merchandise, and durables vs. disposables — and you see how harmony quickly can turn to cacophony. It’s not unusual, therefore, for business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers to merchandise a catalog with every product and part number found in the warehouse. A decision to increase catalog page count often is then a function of SKU count. And the

“Our goal for next year is to have a goal.” The national food cataloger had flown me to its planning meeting for next year’s program. As the company’s CEO called the meeting to order, I was concerned about making a good impression. Could I measure up to this high-level cataloger’s expectations? I opened the meeting crisply: “Let’s start by discussing the basic goals and strategies you’ve used in the past.” The CEO gave a slow, deep sigh and said, “We have no goals; we have no strategies.” A little strategic thinking about your goals can put you ahead of your competitors. And

A few years ago, vendor “partnerships” were all the buzz. Then confusion about the lingo developed, and corporate attorneys grew concerned about the inference of equity from the word. As a result, usage died down. But the spirit of the term should be alive and well in your company. The days of keeping all your information close to the vest and trying to extract every cent out of a vendor contract without regard to a long-term relationship should be long gone. Instead, foster a spirit of cooperation and mutual success, because if both parties aren’t making money, the relationship soon will be over.

The idea of creating a smaller prospecting catalog (same trim size but with fewer pages) full of best-selling pick-up items is appealing and sounds like a logical thing to do for a consumer cataloger. It saves money (or so it seems), and in theory has little, if any, impact on performance. But in practice, this generally isn’t the case. This month, I’ll discuss why it’s more cost-efficient for consumer catalogers to prospect with more pages and the advantages of doing so from a financial perspective. In other words, I’ll examine why you should prospect with the same catalog you mail to

Think about the last time you were excited by a product you saw in a catalog, store or online. What was it that made you take notice? What prompted you to buy it? For product developers, getting to the heart of these questions provides the insights that can help turn ho-hum product concepts into winning sales successes. In Willard Zangwill’s book, “Lightning Strategies for Innovation,” he references the Kano Model as a way to think through product development. From a customer’s viewpoint, a product has three types of features: • Presumed. These are the ones the customer assumes the product will

Effectively planning your merchandise buys will have a dramatic impact on your customer service levels, fill rates and inventory management. Although there are many approaches to planning buys, I’ll offer an overview of the one I’ve used most successfully in my many years in the catalog industry. The process isn’t difficult, but it should be done with some consistency as you build your history from one timeline to the next. Although we frequently talk about the catalog industry being “item-driven,” to plan effectively, step back and look at your business from a broader categorical point of view. Start by defining the

Farley Nachemin, chief merchandising officer of The Company Store Group, Hanover Direct, sheds some light on why it’s worthwhile to cultivate good vendor relationships. Nachemin most recently was president of Hanover’s Domestications catalog. He recently spoke with Alicia Orr Suman, contributing editor. Catalog Success: Why are vendor relations so important? Nachemin: Along with paper and postage, merchandise is a major expense for a cataloger. You can achieve price opportunities, flexibility and other benefits from good vendor relations. For private-label merchandise, vendor relationships are vital for ensuring that you get the quality and good service you expect. CS: Why is flexibility crucial? Nachemin: It