Vermont Teddy Bear launches Pajamagram

(Direct Newsline) Vermont Teddy Bear Co. has launched Pajamagram, a new gift delivery service.

Elizabeth Robert, CEO of the Shelburne, VT-based direct marketer, insisted on remaining mum about the details, but a source close to the company said marketing tests for the start-up program will begin in time for the Mother’s Day holiday.

The Web site, www.pajamagram.com, is live. Its centerpiece offering is a “Pajamagram” for women, which includes pjs, a personalized card, lavender bath tea and a “Do Not Disturb” sign in a keepsake hatbox. Other items for sale are bath and body potions and robes and slippers.

The company, known for selling Bear-Grams through catalogs and over the Internet, has a prodigious e-mail database it could use to market Pajamagrams. Vermont Teddy Bear has 350,000 loyalty club members in its database. SendAmerica, which started its Web site in 1999 and a catalog program in 2002, has a database of about 50,000 e-mails.

SendAmerica drew on Vermont Teddy Bear’s e-mail database when it began marketing in fall 2001. The average order for Vermont Teddy Bear is $100. And, for SendAmerica’s last catalog (it has mailed out two), the average order was also $100. Vermont Teddy Bear mails 1.7 million catalogs a year. SendAmerica plans 600,000 for this year. The company’s annual revenue is $37.3 million.