After nearly five years in business, Marietta, GA-based women’s resortwear cataloger Porto Banus has shut its doors. Calls to the $10 million company, owned by Garges and Mark Purtee, were not returned by press time, but the cataloger’s toll-free number had a recording stating that the business was closed.
Though it seems that Porto Banus was a victim of the cooling economy, it’s not clear exactly what happened or when. While many apparel catalogers had soft spring sales, one source, who insisted on anonymity, speculates that Porto Banus ran into trouble when its resources became tied up in excess inventory as business slowed.
This past February, Mark Purtee spoke to Catalog Age about the company’s growth rate and how its house file had increased 60% in the past year. But the cataloger evidently ran into trouble soon after the interview. Online catalog mall Catalog City took Porto Banus off its site on April 12, says executive vice president Bruce Sellers, after Catalog City’s sales team lost contact with the company in late March.
Porto Banus’s 40,221 12-month-name buyers file is available from Hackensack, NJ-based list firm Mokrynski Associates “on an unlimited, nonexclusive basis,” says vice president of list management Amy Fusco.