FLAX Art & Design

Imagine copying the names of doctors and lawyers from the phone book and mailing them a crude, black-and-white catalog. John Figi, founder of gift food cataloger Figi’s, did just this —and was rewarded with a response in excess of 10 percent! That was in the 1940s, when Americans were starved for retail options. Fast-forward to 2007. Companies have more than 20 square feet of retail space per capita. Customers and prospects have thousands of Web sites from which to order, as well as about 10 to 20 catalogs delivered weekly. Naturally, it’s small wonder that prospecting response rates are declining. So, just what techniques

© Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, July 2007 Interview by Gail Kalinoski Catalog Success: When was the catalog established? Howard Flax: We mailed our first catalog in 1984 to a file of 10,000 names. (Editor’s Note: The firm was started by Howard Flax’s grandfather, Herman Flax, who opened an art supplies store in San Francisco in 1938. Herman’s brothers also ran art supplies store in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Other family members later started stores in Phoenix, Orlando and Atlanta. They are all independently owned and the San Francisco store is the only one with a catalog. After

BACKGROUND: Howard Flax, CEO of FLAX art & design, comes from a long line of art supplies dealers, stretching all the way back to 1938. The first Flax art supplies business was a store in San Francisco founded by Herman Flax, Howard’s grandfather. Other family members followed suit, with stores popping up from New York to Phoenix to Los Angeles. After Herman passed away, his sons Philip and Jerry ran the business. Now, Philip is the chairman, and his sons Howard and Craig, vice president of marketing, run the only Flax store that boasts a catalog. Here, third-generation Flax businessman, Howard Flax,

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

Expert evaluation of catalog mailings was problematic in the past, but mostly just for those few catalogers who had retail stores. That’s not the case anymore. Now virtually every catalog company is multichannel as customers increasingly use the Internet to place orders. The result often is a haphazard online collection of key codes. In this article, we’ll examine the problems with traditional campaign analysis and how you can use a matchback between orders and mail files to substantially overcome these issues. The Problems With Traditional Factored Allocations While unattributable orders usually have been in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, now