December 1, 2007
Great expectations
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Ken Magill
Attention online merchants: Your customers' patience for technical foul-ups getting in the way of their purchases is wearing dangerously thin.
The reason: As e-commerce site experiences continue to improve, customer expectations improve right along with them....
|
GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jim Tierney
Boy meets girl. Boy proposes to girl. Boy and girl head down to the local department store and register for home items, such as place settings, stemware,...
|
Listing forward
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Tim Parry
Is the list business dead? Or, to put it more politely, is it still serving the needs of multichannel merchants? Some list firms have added modeling services....
|
A Lowe's moment
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Melissa Dowling, Editor-in-Chief
Home improvement retailer Lowe's certainly started the season on the wrong foot. A holiday catalog the company published last month included the headline...
|
IAC splitting into five companies
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Tim Parry/Jim Tierney
IAC/InterActiveCorp, whose properties include HSN and the Cornerstone Brands catalogs, will spin itself off into five separate publicly traded companies....
|
Lane Bryant catalog in, Regalia title out
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Tim Parry
You launch some, you lose some. A week after unveiling its long-awaited Lane Bryant catalog, Charming Shoppes on Nov. 8 announced it would close its Regalia...
|
Reform a reality for next rate hike
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jim Tierney
It's official: Future postal rate increases will follow the provisions of the postal reform bill passed a year ago. That means rate hikes will be tied...
|
Best deal for FAO Schwarz
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Tim Parry and Jim Tierney
Upscale toy merchant FAO Schwarz in November acquired Best & Co., a luxury children's apparel and accessories merchant. Terms of the deal were not disclosed....
|
Restoration Hardware sold
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Jim Tierney
Restoration Hardware agreed last month to merge with an affiliate of private equity firm Catterton Partners. ...
|
Movers & shakers
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
General merchant J.C. Penney Co. has hired Ruby Anik as senior vice president and director of brand marketing. Anik joins J.C. Penney from Best Buy, where...
|
Children's market growing up
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Monica Kitchen
From birth through their early teens, kids need a lot of stuff. The children's catalog market includes clothing, home decor, toys, art supplies, educational...
|
Hotel Chocolat opens U.S. Website
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jim Tierney
Royston, U.K.-based Hotel Chocolat is now officially open for business in America. The upscale European chocolatier launched a U.S. Website in early October....
|
Deal making dwindles
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jim Tierney
If industry watchers were expecting a flurry of post-postal rate hike mergers and acquisitions, that hasn't happened — at least not yet. The third quarter brought 13 deals, compared to 16 last year. And these weren't distress deals, either....
|
Not a September to remember
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Tim Parry
Perhaps some catalogers extended their summer vacation. Catalog Tracker's volume for September continued to fall, though not as much as in the previous two months....
|
The elusive impulse factor
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
Since the declining days of the Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward big books or maybe earlier than that catalogs have been in a competitive battlefield....
|
BUT WHAT DOES YOUR INTUITION TELL YOU?
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY CAROL WORTHINGTON-LEVY
We all know that square-inch analysis is nothing to scoff at. The best multichannel marketing companies are successful because they build their catalogs...
|
New tricks for Old Pueblo
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
AMY AFRICA Whether we like it or not, users like Websites that have structure. That's why the most successful e-commerce sites all look the same. Users...
|
Critical Issues and Trends
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY MELISSA DOWLING
Increasing competition from manufacturers and retailers entering the catalog and Web selling channels was ranked the second most pressing marketing concern...
|
FIRE UP your creative team
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY KEVIN KOTOWSKI
It happens to every creative department. Between tight schedules, last-minute revisions and rush projects, the creative staff falls into a rut. Designers...
|
LISTINGS
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
New lists National Arbor Day Foundation Give-a-Tree Donors This list of greeting-card buyers had trees planted in national forests in honor of card recipients....
|
Ship-Shape
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY JENNIFER LONOFF SCHIFF
Touch of Class didn't have the worst return rate, but 11% was bad enough. So the home decor cataloger started a quality assurance program. And it has...
|
Listen Up
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By KAREN M. KROLL
We all know the drill. An order comes in, and the picker has to wade through sheets of labels to know what to pick. It takes time, and he also has to report that it's complete. But there's another way. The worker gets the order through a headset. When he's finished, he says “done.”...
|
The Layout of the Land
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY JENNIFER LONOFF SCHIFF
When L.L. Bean began expanding its stores beyond its Freeport, ME-based flagship location, the venerable outdoor gear and apparel cataloger was challenged...
|
back word
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
Crash, but don't burn We all know Website crashes happen it's how you handle them the counts. A Multichannel Merchant reader forwarded us an e-mail from...
|
LETTERS
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
Website design is not about looking pretty I recently was in London attending ECMOD, the U.K.'s version of the Direct Marketing Association's Annual Conference,...
|
|
|
