Mergers & Acquisitions

Fresh off the sale of their last turnaround project — the reinvigorated J&L Industrial Supply to MSC Industrial Direct in June 2006 — Chuck Moyer and Mike Wessner set their sights on a new opportunity. After an exhaustive search process, these two B-to-B cataloging lifers targeted 63-year-old Conney Safety Products. In a deal financed by the private equity firm CI Capital, Moyer and Wessner acquired the company from its parent firm, K+K America, in October 2007.

For many multichannel merchants, maintaining a profitable business has become increasingly difficult in recent months. While attracting and retaining customers will always be vital to catalogers, today’s economy makes it crucial to have a solid understanding of financial planning and budgeting in order to achieve long-term success. Here are five tips for catalog/multichannel merchants on how to develop and improve budgeting and financing strategies to help weather a down economic climate. 1. Plan not to fail. According to the most recent Small Business Monitor, a semiannual survey of business owners conducted by American Express OPEN, uncertain economic conditions and the rising costs of doing

For the most part, multichannel marketers who don’t operate national retail chains have had it pretty good since the industry beat back North Dakota — and, effectively, the other 49 states — nearly 16 years ago in Quill v. North Dakota. This, of course, was the landmark case that upheld the law that it’s unconstitutional for states to require out-of-state merchants with no physical presence in such states to collect sales, or use, taxes on remotely placed purchases. But earlier this month, the state of New York passed the Internet Sales Tax provision, which requires out-of-state online merchants to collect sales taxes from New

In the first installment of this three-part series on how catalogers’ pricing strategies are evolving in response to the Web’s effect on branded products, let’s examine how catalogers have been put in this precarious situation and what they need to do to remain profitable. As the price-comparison engines turn more branded products into commodities, what’s your catalog’s best pricing strategy? Most catalogers’ current pricing strategy is to have the lowest market price available — either matching or beating any competitor’s best price. This policy is typically supported with a lowest price guarantee. It’s becoming common for most catalogers and Web merchants to offer

I like this question. I also like the related question, “If you had to reduce your marketing spend by $100K, where would you cut?”
To answer either of these questions it’s necessary to have a good understanding of the incremental return on investment (ROI) on each of your marketing activities. I’m always surprised how often that starts with “I think … ” It makes me worry and, as a consultant, probe deeper to see what’s really known vs. what’s just “felt.”
The sad reality is that most B-to-B direct marketers today aren’t working from hard facts in this area. They’re operating from

There’s that old Bob Dylan song about times a-changin’ that I won’t bother to quote further. But it seems to hold true moreso year after year, and 2008 is no exception. So while some of us continue to exchange “happy new year” greetings with one another, I’ll send along one last new year’s greeting with what I believe to be the top five actions you should act on, examine or just ponder to bring your catalog/multichannel business in sync with the times. 1. Get your matchback system working smoothly at once. Assign someone in either your marketing or operations departments to do nothing

Tax-savvy multichannel marketers know “nexus” isn’t a new hair product or a high-priced automobile. The term “nexus” (derived from a Latin word meaning “to connect”) refers to the amount of contact an out-of-state retailer must have with a state before that seller is legally obligated to collect sales tax from customers. The Supreme Court’s landmark Quill v. North Dakota decision in 1992 made clear that, under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the nexus standard requires an in-state physical presence on the part of the retailer. In other words, mail order sales alone will not subject a remote seller to sales or use-tax collection

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.

Whether your catalog company is at $10 million or $150 million in revenue, there are questions about the key metrics of cataloging and Web marketing you should ask yourself — and know where and how to find answers — if you expect to regularly generate above-average profits. Here are the key areas; some are in the form of questions that I use when helping direct marketers prepare their strategic plans, raise growth financing or sell part or all of their business. Merchandising Q1. Describe your merchandising and buying function. Is it a “one-man show?” Q2. Who attends trade shows, makes overseas sourcing trips, selects final products? Is

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,