Shipping

In the first of a two-part series examining the recent passage of the postal rate-making reform law and its effect on catalogers, this week I’ll provide background on the U.S. Postal Service’s rate-making policy and how the new postal reform law will benefit direct marketers. First, let’s examine why and how catalogers found themselves on the short end of the stick following the implementation of new postal rates last May. Way back in 1990, the USPS asked the Postal Rate Commission (PRC) to recommend postal rates that would begin to reflect the processing-cost differences caused by the shape of the mail. The least

If you don’t know it yet, the U.S. Postal Service, that wonderfully efficient government-sanctioned monopoly we all know and “love,” is planning to raise our postal rates again in 2008. Many still are trying to recover from the devastating blow it dealt us in May of this year. Now it wants to hit us again. To me, this is inconceivable and just plain deadly stupid. But then again, that’s what you get when you let big government run commerce.
I’m not here to bash our government, or even the USPS, but we need to scream, not whisper, for the next rate case

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

Catalogers spend loads of time and money acquiring one-time buyers. But there’s more you can do to get these individuals to purchase again. Typically, fewer than half of your first-time buyers make a second purchase. With the high cost of mailing catalogs today coupled with lower response rates, most catalog companies acquire new buyers at an incremental loss. Catalogers must be willing to make an investment in acquiring a new buyer to grow, knowing the payback will come sometime in the future. The amount of time to payback the investment — normally one year — can be reduced by developing a strategy to

There’s a lot that’s already been written on both the passage of postal reform and the 2006-7 postal rate case. To your never-ending relief, I have no intention to speak to either issue here. Sure, your business life often depends on rate case. And the passage of the first new postal law in three decades is nothing to sneeze at. Nonetheless, it’s the “little stuff,” the seemingly niggling changes in postal rules and mail make-up procedures that can carry costs that might add more to the cost burden mailers have to carry than inflation-bound rate changes. As one of our board members likes to put

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,

Postal liasons from printer Quebecor World report that the following Southern California post offices have been affected by the California wildfires. Closed facilities: San Diego District: Dulzura (91917), Jamul (91935), Potrero (91963), Rancho Bernardo (92127/8), Escondido (92025), Fallbrook (92028), Palomar Mountain (92060) Pauma Valley (92061), Rancho Santa Fe (92067), San Marcos (92069), Santa Ysabel (92070), Valley Center (92082), Warner Springs (92086), Blue Jay (92317), Cedar Glen (92321), Crestline (92325), Fawnskin (92333), Green Valley Lake (92341), Lake Arrowhead (92352), Rimforest (92378), Running Springs (92382), Skyforest (92385) and Twin Peaks (92391) Los Angeles District: Malibu, CA (90265) - Malibu Colony Annex, Point Dume, La Costa

Dick Goldsmith of The Horah Group says that 81 percent of consumers like getting the mail, according to U.S. Postal Service figures. “They’re not all going to opt out of getting it,” he said. But he cautioned that he once bought his daughter something from J.Crew and continues to get a J.Crew catalog every week, “which is a waste.” He discussed the momentum of the “do-not-mail” movement during last week’s DMA07 Conference in Chicago. And you can hear the podcast interview (http://www.catalogsuccess.com/download?sid=80440) with Goldsmith and Meta Brophy from Consumers Union, as well as other on-the-scenes commentary by findiing our exclusive Best of DMA07 coverage

For as long as I can remember, legislation that would either lead to a law similar to the “do-not-call” law or that would require mailers to get consumers’ approval before sending them catalogs has been like one of those disasters you only see in the movies or TV. It could never happen in real life, no way. There often have been flashes of “do-not-mail” bill proposals, but nothing has ever become of it. Such a law is one of the biggest reasons American catalogers don’t try to mail in countries like Italy and parts of China, both of which specifically require prior consent

Last week I offered six ways to use low-cost e-mail to increase your sales; the goal being to help those of you (41 percent) who were behind their 2007 sales forecasts according to the reader poll on the CatalogSuccess.com homepage. This week, I’ll focus on print catalog-related tips to increase your revenue in the last quarter of 2007.

* Add an extra catalog to your mail schedule. Take a look at your customer file and sort it by recency/frequency/monetary (RFM) value. Are there RFM cells that are highly profitable every time you mail? These profitable RFM segments (aka your best customers) likely can handle