Yankee Candle Company

Cheaper Than Dirt sells everything from pool toys to wool socks, but when it comes to a social media presence, the brand sticks to its guns. If you assume a Facebook page filled with posts about ammunition and firearms represents the wrong kind of engagement, you’d be mistaken. Fewer brands know their fans better than Cheaper Than Dirt, which has amazingly good sense about the kinds of posts — a mixture of humor, advocacy and education — that inspire conversation and participation.

SOUTH DEERFIELD, Mass., Nov. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Yankee Candle Company, Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of premium scented candles, announced today its new limited-time collection, "My Favorite Things," just in time for the holiday gift-giving season. Inspired by the song "My Favorite Things", this collection brings together a fun assortment of six new fragrances: Raindrops On Roses, Bright Copper Kettles, Warm Woolen Mittens, Crisp Apple Strudel, Moon On Their Wings and Blue Satin Sashes, to fill the season with a nostalgic sense of enchantment. "My Favorite Things" are available in large classic jar candles, small tumbler candles

The Yankee Candle Company, a manufacturer of premium scented candles, today announced the opening of its first company-owned retail stores in Canada. The company currently operates 528 stores in the U.S. As part of the company's global expansion efforts, Yankee Candle will open a total of five stores in the greater Toronto area before Sept. 16, 2011.

The Yankee Candle Company today announced financial results for the first quarter ended April 2, 2011. Sales for the first quarter of 2011 were $144.1 million, a $3.1 million or 2.2 percent increase from the prior year first quarter. Retail sales were $74.8 million, an increase of $1.1 million or 1.5 percent from the first quarter of fiscal 2010. The company incurred a net loss of $5.3 million for the first quarter of 2011 compared to a net loss of $8.5 million for the first quarter of 2010.

With $737 million in net sales last year, The Yankee Candle Co. has a sizable amount of orders to sift through from sales made through its assorted channels — catalog, Web site, paid search, retail, direct mail, e-mail and newspaper inserts. Needless to say, having a reliable matchback program in place is crucial for the South Deerfield, Mass.-based multichannel marketer. So during a session at last week’s NEMOA Conference in Cambridge, Mass., Dana Springfield, general manager of consumer direct at Yankee Candle, led a panel session along with Stacey Hawes, vice president of B-to-B services at the co-op database provider Abacus, and Jim Finnerty,

Problem: Yankee Candle’s Web site made placing custom orders so difficult that many customers had to call the company to finish the transaction. Solution: Redesign the Web site (above) and install Flash technology. Results: The average sale of customer orders increased by 25 percent. Since 1996, Yankee Candle had generated profits through its Web site’s Custom Candles program, which lets customers choose the fragrance, message and message label for a personalized candle. Its business mainly came from people buying favors for weddings and bridal showers. But the site’s static ordering page presented problems. For example, it prevented customers from viewing all of