Staples

Pop-up Stores Attract New Shoppers for Target; Staples' Goal-Setting Program Brings Retailer Prospects; Untapped Networks.

Hopefully, you’ve been keeping up with our coverage of a no-holds-barred, all-telling session during MeritDirect’s recent Business Mailers Co-op in White Plains, N.Y., in which four B-to-B mailers discussed how they’re surviving the current economic malaise and their plans for emerging from it once the economy turns around. In part 1 of this recap last week, we detailed how they’re holding up. In part 2, they discussed how they’re preparing for better times ahead.

Can you maintain your brand’s “look and feel” on an outbound phone call? Does your fulfillment packaging reinforce your company’s “one thing”? Is your brand clearly understood in your print catalog, but misinterpreted in your e-mail campaigns?

Fresh on the heels of a report from the Department of Commerce that December retail sales dropped 2.7 percent, more than double the 1.2 percent decline Wall Street analysts predicted, comes more bad news for multichannel retailers: 2009 doesn't figure to be any better. Such was the sentiment of a panel of retail experts during a session at this month's National Retail Federation Convention & Expo in New York.

Subject lines carry a lot of weight. They drive open rates and results. After e-mail recipients look at your “from” line and recognize your company or service, the next thing they do is look at the subject line to see what might interest them. Let’s examine some of the latest techniques for getting customers past the e-mail client and into your site. Free to Use ‘Free’ In the past, marketers were warned not to use the word “free” in a subject line. The concern was that it triggered spam filters and reduced chances of delivery. Since “free” is the most powerful four-letter

Dear Editor, RE: “DMA Drops MPS Fee” that ran in February's IndustryEye, the Direct Marketing Association took the right step by eliminating the $1 sign-up fee, but its Mail Preference Service (MPS) still requires a credit card number to ensure authenticity. There are more than 4 million names on the MPS suppression file, but DMA hasn’t done much to promote MPS to consumers and its membership base. More importantly, the DMA hasn’t made it easy for consumers to have their names added to the do-not-mail list. Catalog Choice’s goal — to stop unwanted mail to help clean our environment — is a worthy one.

Throughout this decade, giving customers the choice of shopping by catalog, retail or online has been the way to go for those catalogers that operate retail chains and e-commerce Web sites. How closely do you examine your customers’ buying habits to safely conclude your multichannel efforts make the most sense? The office supplies multichannel retailer Staples sees multichannel as “the brilliance of the ‘and’ vs. the tyranny of the ‘or,’” said Kenneth Moore, director of business delivery information technology for Staples, during a session at last week’s eTail Conference in Palm Desert, Calif. Moore laid out four types of Staples customers that have

Lately I’ve noticed I’ve been getting repeat mailings from large B-to-B office suppliers — and they all look the same. It probably doesn’t help that Office Depot, Staples and OfficeMax have similar corporate colors. They all seem stuck in their “10 percent or $10 off” offer, or some version of it. To make matters even more boring, the mailings always seem to be in one of two or three standard formats. You know the ones: large postcards, #10 solo or folded flyer.
You look at them and say, “Oh, that again,” and toss it. It got me thinking about the opportunity we

While the sophistication of high-end e-mail marketing tools can be a bit daunting, virtually any cataloger can find an e-mail marketing package that will increase sales without breaking the bank. “Although it is often taken for granted, the power of e-mail derives from its ubiquity,” says David Hallerman, a senior analyst at market research firm eMarketer and author of “E-Mail and Word-of-Mouth: Connecting With Your Best Customers.” He notes that about 90 percent of U.S. Internet users are regular e-mail users, “clearly an audience that has attained critical mass. Although spam makes it harder to reach customers’ inboxes, e-mail’s personal impact is unmatched

If you operate a dedicated catalog/multichannel business nowhere near the size of Staples, you may think you have little in common with the office products giant. But in catalogs and on the Web, the playing field gets leveled and best practices can be common among many players. During a session at the recent NEMOA conference in Cambridge, Mass., Staples Director of Usability Colin Hynes laid out several ways in which Staples brings customer centricity to its catalog, store and Web initiatives. 1. Research user goals by doing in-store studies, seeing if customers use their catalogs in stores. 2. Design those goals through content maps and page