Shipping

How your operations and marketing efforts can benefit from statistical analysis and modeling. Forgive me if I generalize for a minute. There are two approaches to marketing analysis: the arithmetic and the statistical. The Arithmetic Approach Sometimes called “descriptive analytics,” this is relatively straightforward and inexpensive, depending on a spreadsheet and the sweat of your brow. Extracting a season’s sales from your transaction system to your spreadsheet, you can determine the following: - percent response, by dividing your number of orders by your mail quantity per segment; - average order value, by dividing your gross sales by your number of orders per segment; -

Your relationship with your print suppliers should be strong and cohesive. After all, your printer may be your largest vendor in terms of dollars spent annually. Your printer is important to your business, and you should view it as your company’s business partner. When deciding on a printer, price certainly is important. No direct marketer should pay a large premium for the privilege of dealing with a particular printing company. But there are other factors, such as service, lead times and technology, that should be taken into consideration. In this article, I’ll offer tips for maximizing your relationship with your printer.

What to do about declining results to prospect lists. Response rates to outside prospect lists have been on the decline, and last year was no exception. In some cases, results to tried-and-true continuation lists are off by as much as 50 percent. This isn’t a trend that’s likely to reverse itself anytime soon. This month, I’ll look at some reasons why response rates have declined and what you can do to compensate. Why Prospect Lists Trend Down Response rates to prospect lists have declined for several reasons: unseasonably warm weather during this past fall and holiday buying season, large amounts of consumer debt

In a world of cynics it’s easy to focus purely on what needs fixing or what’s just plain silly. Yet no doubt you agree that it can be refreshing and heartening to concentrate on the positive things one sees in daily life. Here are a few I encountered in the past few weeks: Gift cards for various merchants sold in supermarkets. A display at my local Super Fresh included gift cards for companies such as Bed Bath & Beyond and The Home Depot. Talk about convenient holiday gift shopping for consumers and an added distribution channel for merchants. To whomever thought of that idea,

© Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, January 2006 Catalog Success: When was the catalog established? Paal Gisholt: The catalog was established in April of 2002. Prior to that, we were a dot-com company that started in June of 2000. CS: How do you describe your primary merchandise? PG: We have a core product offering, which is custom-packed equine nutritional supplements in daily-dose packs. We’ve used that as a platform from which we sell all different types of products that are useful to people who ride horses. Those are things like horse clothing, barn and stable equipment, rider gear, pharmaceuticals for horses, etc. And

With Americans spending as much as $26 billion on holiday gifts online in the past two months, an increase of 18 percent from 2004, according to Jupiter Research, chances are good you’ve just shipped a record number of packages. As you begin to assess how well you weathered the holiday rush, consider how your customers received your products. Did all your packages arrive in one piece? How many returns were due to damaged merchandise? Following are new products and services that can help keep your packages safe and your fulfillment center in top form. Foam Packaging Delivered at Room Temperature Instapak

Co-mailing (also known as co-mingling) is the process of combining different catalog titles from different catalog companies into one mail stream to generate more carrier route discount mail. On the surface, co-mailing sounds like a great idea. Why would any cataloger be opposed to co-mailing if it resulted in a greater postage discount? However, co-mailing can be challenging. Five Requirements 1. All of the catalogs in the co-mailing must be the exact same trim size. 2. The ink-jet areas must be the same on both the order form/page and on the back cover. 3. All of the participating catalogs must have page counts

It’s likely we’ll see a 5.4 percent increase in postal expenses in 2006. To us mailers, the meaning is simple: 5.4 percent less contribution to overhead and profits. We’ll need to rethink list and circulation strategies to keep some of our marginal lists within our allowable metrics. Therefore, we’ll either have to: ¥ scrap the mailing lists that aren’t performing within allowable metrics; ¥ review customer lifetime value and allow for a longer payback process (the time it takes to recoup the investment into acquiring a new customer), and a deeper loss per customer acquired; or ¥ reduce catalog expenses to an amount commensurate to the postal

Problem: Multititle cataloger Shindigz/Stumps wanted to reduce overall transportation expenses, while retaining flexibility in its product shipping options offered to customers. Solution: The multichannel merchant put its parcel shipping business up for bid. Results: A switch in carriers enabled Shindigz/Stumps to reduce its overall transportation costs by 27 percent. Brad Grimsley knew he needed to make some changes. The vice president of service and fulfillment at Shindigz/Stumps, a South Whitley, Ind.-based party and prom supplies merchant, says he noticed soon after arriving at the company in 2003 that he had an opportunity to reduce shipping expenses. Meanwhile, the company’s overall order volume

Rex Ciavola, senior vice president of marketing operations at Office Depot and Viking Office Products, doesn’t let minor setbacks like postage and paper hikes dampen his spirit. Rather, he sets out to find other ways to attain the Utopian, “better, faster, cheaper” way to print. Ciavola oversees the A-to-Zs of both of the organizations’ marketing initiatives, including all retail advertising, direct mail, inserts and catalogs. He leads a collaborative, global marketing and production organization that includes the Office Depot team in Delray Beach, Fla.; the Viking team in Torrance, Calif.; and teams based in Europe and Japan. The combined organizations have internal staffs that