September 2006 Issue
A Chat with Eduard Bjorncrantz, Vice President, Direct Marketing at Day-Timers, Inc.
Interview by Matt Griffin © Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, September 2006 Catalog Success: When was the catalog established? Eduard Bjorncrantz: Well, the history goes back to Dorney Printing, which started in 1938. Bob and Bill Dorney were two guys who worked in the business, and they started a mail-order branch of the business selling birthday calendars. In 1942, Dorney Printing was registered as a business, but the Day-Timer business started with a man named Morris Perkin. He was an attorney who invented Lawyer’s Day, which was an appointment, calendar, scheduling, and to-do list system. In 1952, he brought Lawyer’s Day to
Actionable E-mail Sign-up Ideas
Some ideas to try on your own, with real examples in parentheses: • Use a clean pop-up to collect e-mail information (Williams-Sonoma). • Let visitors sign up for e-mails from your retail stores (Crutchfield). • Tell visitors they’ll receive a discount coupon by e-mail right after signing up — it raises sign-up rates, and ensures the e-mail is valid (REI). • Allow visitors to select the content they want to receive (PetSmart). • After sign-up, tell the user to expect an e-mail confirmation (Vermont Teddy Bear).
Avoid Fulfillment Woes
How to use a warehouse assessment to improve customer service and decrease costs. Your warehouse this past holiday season was near capacity; you made it through the season, but it wasn’t pretty. The marketing plans for the new year and next holiday are up considerably. The executive committee of your multichannel company has made a decision that the company must meet the aggressive sales plan, and you have to find ways to stay in this facility for at least one more year. You have two months to come up with a new operational plan. What are you going to do? A key starting point
Canadian Catalog Lists
COMPANY NAME TOTAL BUYERS 12-MONTH BUYERS BASE PRICE/M Abercrombie & Fitch 29,977 12,367 $125 Acorn Direct 3,290 3,136 $135 Bass Pro Shops 8,074 4,495 $90 Brookstone 7,931 6,210 $110 Casual Living 448,385 448,385 $114 Coldwater Creek 60,432 24,773 $130 Eddie Bauer 25,648 8,948 Exch. Only Edwin Watts Golf Shops 2,024 2,024 $125 Hammacher Schlemmer 47,945 11,922 $135 Metropolitan Museum of Art 17,125 17,125 $175 National Wildlife 3,842 3,842 $125
Contributions to Profit: The Art and Science of Testing
Not long ago, a client of mine was all but certain that by upgrading the paper used for its catalog, sales would increase. Unfortunately, the client scoffed at the notion of running a pro forma break-even analysis to determine how much revenue was needed to offset the additional paper and postal costs. In fact, it took the client’s paper merchant, printer, service bureau reps and myself to convince the cataloger to set up a test before making a global change to this new paper grade. Simple A/B Split Test Once convinced, the client set up a pretty straightforward, scientific A/B split test, sending
E-coming of Age
Over the years, I’ve made plenty of catalog purchases, but rarely simply because I was a catalog business editor. I only turned to catalogs when I needed something unusual or came across a killer sale. Otherwise, I bought my mainstream goods off the rack. Today, that’s changed. And the two vehicles that have impacted me the most have been the coming of age of e-mail and the remarkable ease of search engines. I find e-mail’s impact on me surprising, because less than five years ago, I’d delete any personal e-mail from just about any address I didn’t recognize. But now, I find myself looking
E-coming of Age
&000;&000; Over the years, I've made plenty of catalog purchases, but rarely simply because I was a catalog business editor. I only turned to catalogs when I needed something unusual or came across a killer sale. Otherwise, I bought my mainstream goods off the rack. Today, that's changed. And the two vehicles that have impacted me the most have been the coming of age of e-mail and the remarkable ease of search engines. I find e-mail's impact on me surprising, because less than five years ago, I'd delete any personal e-mail from just about any address I didn't recognize. But now, I
E-commerce Insights:Improve Your E-mail Sign-up Process
How can you get more e-mail sign-ups from your site visitors? E-mail sign-up is simple: a few clicks followed by a handful of keystrokes. But the same process of close comparative scrutiny also can improve complex processes, such as cart and check-out. This article focuses on the e-mail sign-up process at 45 multichannel retailers. For this study, I pulled 45 sites at random, taken from some of the larger merchants in the country. I signed up for e-mail at each using a fresh Gmail account. (For the full methodology and detailed scores and notes for each site, visit www.rimmkaufman.com/e-mail-sign-up-study.) I conducted these tests in
Northern Safety Corporate Timeline
1983: Sal Longo and his brother Ronald found a home-based business selling first-aid kits and safety gear out of a van to local factories and municipalities in Frankfort, N.Y. 1985: The company adopts the name Northern Safety and enters the direct mail industry with an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch mailer with two gloves on one side. Armed with 1,000 names from the McCray’s Industrial Directory, Northern Safety sends the mailer in a No. 10 envelope and sees a 2.5 percent response rate. Later that year, the mailer turns into a 24-page catalog. Sales increase threefold over the previous year, and the company moves into a
Order Entry System Reduces Shipping Errors
Problem: The order entry system for My Grandma’s of New England routinely transposed data from one order to another, causing shipping errors and other assorted problems. Solution: The company implemented a new order entry system. Results: Shipping errors were virtually eliminated. My Grandma’s of New England had an order entry system (OES) that was wildly unstable, often causing data errors that resulted in shipping methods from one order being applied to another order, disappearing entirely or customer greetings placed on an order to end up on the wrong order. So last November, the company implemented Morse Data’s InOrder OES to reduce shipping errors caused by its legacy
OutFront: People on the Move & Letter to the Editor
Sears Holdings: Alan Lacy has resigned as Sears’ CEO and vice chairman of the board of directors for both Sears Holdings and Sears Canada. Former AutoNation and iVillage.com CFO Craig Monaghan has joined Sears as CFO. Williams-Sonoma: Howard Lester, this multichannel home furnishings merchant’s chairman since 1986, has been named CEO, a post he previously held from 1979 to 2001. He replaces Ed Mueller, who resigned in late July after less than three years at the helm. Mueller will remain with the company as director. Laura Alber has been promoted to president of Williams-Sonoma from her previous role as president of Pottery Barn Brands.
Profile of Success: Ed Bjorncrantz, A Dedicated Catalog Veteran
Through countless catalog experiences, Ed Bjorncrantz’s passion for growth and the catalog business never has ebbed. How he got involved in cataloging: After attending Colgate University, C. Eduard Bjorncrantz was hired to run the catalog sales office for the Arlington, Va., Sears store. He later left the post to get his MBA at the University of Virginia, after which he went back to work for Sears in its Chicago offices in a product management program. Among other assignments, Bjorncrantz was appointed assistant catalog marketing manager for bedspreads and draperies — then the largest catalog division in the company. Following assignments in retail marketing and
Safely Ahead of the Game
By Matt Griffin&000;&000; &000;&000; Unique prospecting methods, employee empowerment and a key acquisition have fueled Northern Safety's speedy growth In just a year, safety and industrial supplies cataloger Northern Safety has acquired a competitor, added an outside sales force, nearly doubled its staff and opened the doors of a new distribution center. In the process, the company has increased its annual sales by more than 70 percent. Sal Longo, president of the Frankfort, N.Y.-based business-to-business (B-to-B) catalog, says this growth is the result of aggressive prospecting, strategic partnerships and empowering employees to get the job done on their own terms. Not that growth
Safely Ahead of the Game
In just a year, safety and industrial supplies cataloger Northern Safety has acquired a competitor, added an outside sales force, nearly doubled its staff and opened the doors of a new distribution center. In the process, the company has increased its annual sales by more than 70 percent. Sal Longo, president of the Frankfort, N.Y.-based business-to-business (B-to-B) catalog, says this growth is the result of aggressive prospecting, strategic partnerships and empowering employees to get the job done on their own terms. Not that growth is new to Northern Safety. In its nearly 23 years in business, the cataloger never has had a negative
Sal Longo’s Catalog Startup Tips
Since he co-founded Northern Safety when he was just 20 years old, President Sal Longo says he had to learn everything the hard way, finding everything out for himself. Here’s some advice he wishes he’d known then: • Go to conferences and meet as many people as you can. First, you’ll meet some of the best consultants at industry events, and second, you’ll meet seasoned catalog veterans who can share their expertise. Learn as much as you can. • Find a mentor. Longo says he often forms advising relationships with companies new to the direct marketing game. He recommends looking for mentors outside your product vertical
Still Fit to Print?
Despite rapid online gains, future still bright for print catalogs. Considering it’s now been at least a decade since debates first surfaced in this business about whether the print catalog would ultimately become obsolete in favor of online catalogs, you’d think you could make a stronger case for such a phenomenon in 2006. And today, with a rapidly growing number of catalogers reporting 50 percent-plus levels of orders placed online, the writing would seem to be on the wall. But while it’s nice to dream of the cost savings associated with alleviating paper catalogs altogether, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, to quote Mark Twain.
Still Fit to Print?
By Carolyn Heinze&000;&000; &000;&000; Despite rapid online gains, future still bright for print catalogs Considering it's now been at least a decade since debates first surfaced in this business about whether the print catalog would ultimately become obsolete in favor of online catalogs, you'd think you could make a stronger case for such a phenomenon in 2006. And today, with a rapidly growing number of catalogers reporting 50 percent-plus levels of orders placed online, the writing would seem to be on the wall. But while it's nice to dream of the cost savings associated with alleviating paper catalogs altogether, reports of its death are
Strategy: Colour Me Canadian
The Canadian dollar’s strength makes marketing by catalog to Canadians a prime expansion opportunity for U.S. catalogers these days. For many, it’s a logical way to grow, provided the prospecting universe is sufficient for the offer. Mailing and distributing merchandise into Canada has become almost seamless thanks to services such as the one offered by Canada Post Borderfree. Here’s what you can expect, and how you can get started test marketing and building a Canadian housefile as part of your overall circulation strategy. Sizing Up the Market There are approximately 33 million people and 12.5 million consumer households in Canada. Similar to the
The 10 Biggest Mistakes in Merchandise Presentation
A cataloger’s job of presenting merchandise is second in importance only to selecting the right merchandise. Readers decide in seconds whether they’re going to continue to read about a product or move on. The amount of information readers comprehend “at a glance” isn’t limited by their brains; it’s only limited by what we put in front of them. Even those interested in a product will skip over it if they don’t understand it or they’re not “sold” on it. What and how you show product in your catalog makes all the difference in the world. The following list contains the most frequent
The10 Biggest Mistakes in Merchandise Presentation
By Glenda Shasho Jones &000;&000; A cataloger's job of presenting merchandise is second in importance only to selecting the right merchandise. Readers decide in seconds whether they're going to continue to read about a product or move on. The amount of information readers comprehend "at a glance" isn't limited by their brains; it's only limited by what we put in front of them. Even those interested in a product will skip over it if they don't understand it or they're not "sold" on it. What and how you show product in your catalog makes all the difference in the world. The following
