Omnichannel

Facilitated largely by the Internet, consumers have been ordering gifts later in the holiday season. Indeed, 20 percent of consumers reported they started their online shopping later in 2004 than in 2003, according to the 2004 Shop.org/BizRate.com Online Holiday Mood Study. Shop.org also reported that 46 percent of online retailers offered express shipping promotions the week of Dec. 19, no doubt adding more pressure to their already full holiday workloads. These trends can cause some rather drastic spikes and accompanying problems in any catalog business. During the past several years, we’ve heard horror stories of poorly planned operations resulting in excessive order

Two years ago, J.C. Penney Co. unveiled its latest branding slogan, “It’s all inside,” to illustrate to consumers that no matter which channel they shop — retail, catalog or online — they’ll find the same from Penney in terms of merchandise, service and the overall brand. No other companies have copied Penney’s slogan, of course, but many have followed the same path, recognizing that with more orders coming online, customers need to know that regardless of which channel they choose, they can expect a similar experience. Easy Does It Some catalogers have been making subtle alterations in their approaches to the print book

We’re all guilty of occasionally hearing only what we want to hear. Sometimes we don’t want to face facts. Rather, we want to think what we want to think. We tend to do what’s comfortable and put off dealing with the issues at hand. In this article, I’ve identified 10 things you, a catalog company president, probably don’t want to hear. (Or if you report to a president, tear out this article and put it on his or her desk.) Listen to these cold, hard facts. 1. Your company won’t grow if you don’t prospect more. Invest in new buyers. You’re not always

More than one-third of online shoppers reported they frequently shop around online before making a purchase in a retail store, according to a study of multichannel shoppers conducted by Fry Inc., the e-tailing group and comScore Networks. Other findings include: ¥ 97% of shoppers expect a seamlessly integrated shopping experience between online and offline channels. ¥ 46% of consumers start their shopping at a search engine. ¥ 39% of shoppers go directly to the retail Web sites in which they are interested. ¥ 36% of online shoppers have purchased a product online and picked it up at a retail location. Source: comScore Networks, www.comscore.com

Multichannel marketing and customer relations were the primary business issues cited by three catalog executives speaking at the Hudson Valley Direct Marketing Association’s luncheon Feb. 23 in Rye, N.Y. Despite their diverse markets, Lillian Vernon President Jonathan Shapiro, CM Almy President Stephen Fendler, and Petals CEO Chris Topping agreed on the need for continuity among sales channels in order to grow their businesses. With 45 percent of its orders coming online during the holiday 2004 season, Lillian Vernon is particularly attentive to the rapid channel shift to online buying. “I call it ‘shift happens’,” Shapiro said. “It’s important for us, and everybody, to understand the

Cataloging usually is a predictable world. We track everything, study it, place data in spreadsheets and end up knowing pretty well in advance how things will work out. In fact, if businesses had human personalities, cataloging would be your Aunt Matilda and Uncle Gus: safe, predictable, no surprises. But then there comes a day when Uncle Gus calls to say he has flown to Rio with his secretary, and Aunt Matilda has joined the circus. What do you do when the predictable becomes, well, unpredictable? The Mystery of the Rotten Rollout After several years of slow growth, the mid-sized niche cataloger decided he needed

By what level you can grow your business is dependent on the increase in your 12-month buyer file, as you can see in this issue’s list of the Top 200 catalogers. If your housefile is growing, your revenue likely will increase, and vice versa. No doubt you pay a lot of attention to your catalog’s daily and/or weekly demand report. Is it up from last year? How does it look against budget? But you probably don’t pay enough attention to the increase/decrease in your 12-month housefile. This month I’ll examine why this file is critical to your growth rate. And I’ll offer strategies

From scrapbooking supplies to Coach bags, and catalog consolidation to television advertising, 2005 is ushering in some interesting trends for catalogers. Ben Perez, president of list brokerage and management firm Millard Group, and programming chairperson of The Direct Marketing Association’s Catalog Council, sees the following merchandise and industry trends that catalogers should be watching. 1. Luxury items are still hot, and mass marketers are doing well. “It’s the middle slice of the market that will continue to have trouble,” said Perez during his presentation at the Catalog-on-the-Road conference, held in Cambridge, Mass., in February. 2. Scrapbooking is hot. “Collecting is becoming a popular activity,” he observed.

Customers like the convenience of ordering merchandise online and picking it up at their local stores, says Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group, a Chicago-based consultancy that provides e-commerce merchandising solutions. “As online shopping continues to become more mainstream, we believe that delivering a cohesive, multichannel shopping experience is essential,” she says. To that end, the e-tailing group offers the following checklist to multichannel retailers offering in-store pickup of items ordered on the Internet. 1. Consistently send an e-mail notification when merchandise is available for pickup; include detailed pick-up information. 2. Strive to have merchandise available for pickup within 24 to 48 hours from the order

Ease of use, not low product prices, rules customers’ online shopping satisfaction rates, according to Keynote Systems, which recently tracked the shopping experiences of about 2,000 consumers. Here’s what Keynote found: * 59 percent: consumers who cited ease of use as the most important criterion when selecting an online shopping site. * 32 percent: consumers who said low prices were what drew them to particular sites. * 6.1: average number of problems a typical consumer encountered during a single shopping experience. Keynote Systems’ executives recommended that online merchants focus on the following: site performance, the best practices of e-commerce leaders and customer feedback.