J.C. Penney

In his keynote address at the 2008 Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago last week, Mike Boylson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of J.C. Penney, discussed his company’s evolution and how the Web has become central to its growth mission. With a $1.4 billion marketing budget, Penney certainly intends to fund its Web development generously. “It’s becoming an economic necessity to transform the marketing initiative to the digital space,” Boylson said, noting the rising costs involved with mailing catalogs. This isn’t to say that Penney has abandoned the catalog as a marketing channel. It’s just scaling back. And the message being

Environmental groups Catalog Choice and ForestEthics are hot on catalogers’ tails. So are state governments, with 18 do-not-mail bills under review in 15 states as of the beginning of this year. As if catalogers didn’t have enough adversity — with postage on the rise again and the economy on the fall — they can’t afford to take the issue of environmentalism and sustainability lightly much longer. That’s why we’ve devoted the cover section to this hot topic. Consider the most recent events: • On Oct. 9, 2007, relative newcomer Catalog Choice unveiled its free, Web-based service to encourage consumers to opt out of

Going “green” will become increasingly important for multichannel merchants as consumers’ spending habits continue to be influenced by environmental concerns. According to the 2007 Annual National Shopping Behavior Survey by KPMG, a vast majority of holiday shoppers expressed a willingness to pay more for ecofriendly gifts and took note of the countries where items were made. The recent survey of 815 shoppers was conducted randomly by telephone. Here are some highlights of the survey: * 88 percent of respondents said they were very concerned about the environment, with 74 percent saying they buy environmentally friendly products; * 60 percent of those respondents were willing

People On the Move Neiman Marcus: The multichannel apparel marketer has promoted its retail division president/CEO Karen Katz to executive vice president of the parent company, Neiman Marcus Group. The company has also promoted the Group’s senior vice president and CFO James Skinner to executive vice president and CFO. Sears: The multichannel retailer has hired Louis Ramery as its new senior vice president, customer relationship marketing. Ramery, who’ll have overall responsibilities for developing and executing the Sears Holdings’ relationship marketing strategies and programs, will report to Maureen McGuire, Sears Holdings’ chief marketing officer. He was previously with Digitas, a marketing agency network. J.C. Penney: The multichannel

According to STORES magazine’s inaugural Favorite 50 survey, conducted by BIGresearch, consumers are drawn most to Web sites that offer a variety of choices. Topping the publication’s rankings for customers’ favorite online retail companies was Amazon.com, whose broad product array connects with consumers. Following Amazon’s site was another site full of possibilities, eBay.com. The rest of the top 10 is below, followed by a list of all catalog companies ranked in the top 50. 3. WalMart.com 4. BestBuy.com 5. JCPenney.com 6. Target.com 7. Kohls.com 8. Overstock.com 9. Google.com 10. Sears.com The following catalogers were also on the list (followed by actual rank): LandsEnd.com (13),

Shakeups at Three Big Multichannel Retailers Executive departures have resulted in major changes at three large multichannel retailers. Below are the maneuverings. J.C. Penney: Chairman/CEO Myron “Mike” Ullman has added the responsibilities of COO for this multichannel giant following the December termination of EVP/COO Catherine West. The Home Depot: Robert Nardelli has resigned as chairman/CEO of this multichannel home improvement products merchant. He’s been replaced by Vice Chairman and EVP Frank Blake. Additionally, CFO Carol Tome has added the title of EVP, corporate services; EVP for Home Depot Supply Joe DeAngelo has been named COO; and Brian Robbins has replaced John Campi as SVP, global sourcing and

Catalog Success Editor in Chief Paul Miller caught up with J.C. Penney Chairman/CEO Myron “Mike” Ullman during last week’s National Retail Federation convention in New York. Ullman touched on several topics, including Penney’s multichannel advances and its ability to thrive while other big book catalog retailers were forced to redefine themselves over the years. Catalog Success: How do you see the role of your big book catalog changing? Ullman: We have a number of specialty catalogs and that’s where our growth has been. Our big book is still important; it still plays a role, especially among our more loyal customers, and it’s still successful. Catalog Success: How

What online offers are most effective today? To answer this question, I’ll revisit 14th century Japanese poetry, tap the insights of experts at the three leading search engines and talk return shipping with two leading online retailers. Today’s Advertising Haiku Haiku is a Japanese poetic form dating to the 1400s. Haiku poems consist of three lines of five, seven and five syllables. When written well, these poems can pack a powerful emotional punch. Today’s online advertising equivalent of haiku is paid search advertising. Taking Google AdWords as the archetype, a pay-per-click ad consists of a 25-character title, two 35-character lines of ad copy and a 35-character

Does your company market products through comparison shopping engines? Comparison shopping engines (CSEs) are sites such as Yahoo! Shopping, Shopping.com, Gifts.com, Pricegrabber, NexTag, MSN Shopping, Google Base and Shopzilla. CSEs aggregate SKU data from retailers for online shoppers. Some retailers avoid CSEs due the technical hassle of sending product data to the engines and retrieving corresponding advertising cost reports. But today, the National Retail Federation (NRF) announced a new data format intended to simplify communication between retailers, agencies and CSEs. The beta test of the standard took place last week when engineers at Channel Intelligence used the format to submit product data for

Connect the dots. All good catalog marketers know their customers’ lifetime value. And those who are savvy have a handle on their customers’ spending patterns by channel. In today’s multichannel environment, the winners are those who synchronize their online and offline efforts. There are many studies showing that customers who interact with a cataloger in more than one channel spend dramatically more than a single-channel customer. J.C. Penney was one of the first to come to this realization. A study the multichannel retail giant conducted with Abacus on annual spending showed: • Internet-only shoppers spent —$151. • Catalog-only shoppers spent —$201. • Retail-only shoppers spent