Paul Fredrick

Click here to listen to our full interview with September’s Profile, Scott Drayer, director of marketing, Paul Fredrick MenStyle.

Merchandise is still king. That was only one of a handful of themes taken from a wide-ranging and spirited session at last week’s NEMOA Spring 2008 Conference in Cambridge, Mass. This particular session included Derrick Egbert, president of New Perspectives; Allen Abbott, EVP/COO of Paul Frederick MenStyle; Jonathan Fleischmann, president/ CEO of the Potpourri Group; and Dana Pappas, COO/CFO of Plow & Hearth. It focused on the pressures of managing a catalog business in today’s uncertain economic times. Below are some of the tips/observations taken from the panelists and audience members. * Merchandise: “It’s the starting point,” Fleischmann said. The need for collaboration

Earlier this month, catalogers and other businesses that rely so heavily on the USPS realized a “dream” more than a dozen years in the making. They were “treated” to their first postal rate adjustment under the new postal reform law. Under its new rate-making powers, giving it the freedom to set rates as long as they’re no greater than consumer price index (CPI) levels, the USPS announced the increase for noncarrier route flats, the key catalog category, would be less than 1 percent. The worst news was that it would take effect this spring, just a year after the final postage increase under the

Sur La Table 163,680 56,295 191 $85 cookware Mokrynskidirect 12/06 9/05 Dog.com 139,829 51,031 174 $115 pet supplies List Locators 9/06 5/05 & Managers Knit Picks 73,502 27,347 169 $60 crafts Walter Karl 6/06 6/05 Cutter & Buck 70,938 30,555 132 $147 men’s apparel Mokrynskidirect 1/07 1/06 Kinsman Co. 27,090 12,695 113 $83 gardening supplies D-J Associates 12/06 9/05 Fannie May Confections 72,173 34,794 107 $36 candy, chocolates Millard Group 11/06 10/05 Leichtung Workshops 20,312 9,958 104 $52 woodworking tools Names & 9/06 7/05 Addresses Orion Telescopes 33,445 16,849 99 $175 telescopes Millard Group and Binoculars 7/06 7/05 Time for Me 141,411 71,958 97 $95 women’s apparel Mokrynskidirect 1/07 10/05 Siegel Display Products 33,569 17,474 92 $300 promotional display products Direct Media 10/06 10/05 Smith & Hawken 140,722 74,971 88 $125 gardening supplies Belardi/Ostroy ALC 11/06 10/05 Redding Medical 13,689 7,642 79 $95 nursing supplies Fasano and 12/06 8/05 Associates Penn Herb Co. Ltd. 26,459 14,837 78 $54 natural remedies Walter Karl 4/06 5/05 MidWest Edwin Watts Golf 328,416 185,448 77 $250 golf equipment Venture Direct 8/06 5/05 Worldwide Staples 3,843,101 2,183,681 76 $250 office products Direct Media 12/06 11/05 Sporty’s Men’s Collection 12,926 7,368 75.4 N/A men’s recreational products Millard Group 1/07 5/05 New England Business 1,114,626 636,766 75 $120 office products MeritDirect Service (NEBS) 12/06 9/05

E-mail address churn and list fatigue plague your e-mail marketing campaigns, whether you’re aware of it or not. And the fewer addresses you have to e-mail, the fewer sales you close as a result. On a recent conference call hosted by NCR E-commerce Solutions, marketers, including men’s apparel cataloger Paul Fredrick MenStyle and a multichannel apparel and home goods merchant, offered several pointers on how to track, reduce and otherwise combat list fatigue. 1. Limit the number of e-mails you send. One merchant’s hard and fast rule is that customers never receive more than one e-mail per week, even during the holidays. While this merchant

How the right photographer factors into the catalog production equation. In the catalog business, a picture isn't just worth 1,000 words — it can seriously affect your sales. Product photos, therefore, must give consumers an accurate idea of what you're selling, as well as drive them to make a purchase. Choosing the right photographer can make all the difference in how well your catalog is received. "The products being shot have to be well represented, and the photos need to show the subtleties of the fabrics and the things that are important from a consumer perspective," says Chris Price, president of

By Matt Griffin Now an eight-player field, consumer co-ops widen their offerings. What works best foryour catalog? With five established cooperative databases in the market, and three others trying to make headway in the past year, you might wonder what exactly separates each of these from one another. Whatever sets each co-op apart, the important thing to consider is that constant testing will prove whether the models offered by each company actually work. "Certainly you have to be willing to test the different databases, and you have to be willing to test different models," says Bob Webb, senior vice president of marketing for

Paul Fredrick Sacher is one of the five premier catalog merchants of menswear — primarily dress shirts, neckties and cufflinks. If he had 100,000 customers like Franklin Watts, he would be in hog heaven. Frank Watts was a hard drinking, wildly irreverent and funny traveling book salesman who founded a children’s publishing company in 1945 that bears his name today. The son of a Baptist minister, Watts once said that from his earliest boyhood he was made to wear a shirt and tie every day to be presentable in case a parishioner came to the rectory. All of his life, the only time Watts

Attempting to market across multiple channels, catalogers have been using myriad marketing methods to drive sales to particular channels and across channels. While the promotions can be effective, they are hard to track. Netcentives, a loyalty and e-mail marketing solutions company, is offering catalogers a new way of following customers’ buying habits, creating more effective marketing campaigns and encouraging multi-channel shopping with its program Retail Rewards. Customers join Retail Rewards by registering their credit card with their favorite catalogers to receive rewards for their purchases in any channel. Catalogers who join the program create a customer credit card registration page on their sites.