Toy Story

| Mark Del Franco

The past few years have been anything but fun and games for New York-based cataloger/retailer FAO Schwarz. The purveyor of upscale toys survived two bankruptcies

Promotions Giveth and Taketh Away

| MCM staff

Promotional offers can increase response rate and demand per catalog among both the house file and prospect list segments, says Michael Grant of Scarsdale, NY-based catalog consultancy Michael Grant Direct. But the subsequent impact can vary by segment, so be sure to measure the downstream results.

EBay answers the IP Voice Call

| Brian Quinton

Voice over IP technology takes the analog waves of voice sounds, digitizes them into the ones and zeroes needed to transmit on data networks, sends them over the Internet, and then turns them back into sounds. And that

Verifying B-to-B Mail

| Bernie Goldberg

Building and maintaining your business-to-business house file can be daunting, especially when you have different databases throughout the enterprise. These multiple databases frequently have no common link and it is impossible to exchange information between the company

Office Depot to Close Viking’s U.S. Business

| Mark Del Franco

In a surprise move, $14.4 billion office products cataloger/retailer Office Depot on Sept. 12 said it planned to close the domestic operations of its Viking Office Products business and merge it within its Office Depot operations.

Calculating the True Value of Your List Rental Income

| MCM staff

If your list is available for rental, one of the challenges you face is identifying the true value of your list rental income. List rental value can no longer simply be equated with list rental income. The increased reliance on exchanging during the past few years has forced mailers and their list managers to take a more comprehensive, realistic view of the definition of value that is derived from having one

Collegiate Pacific, Sport Supply Group Finalize Terms

| MCM staff

Dallas-based Collegiate Pacific has agreed to swap stock to acquire the 47%
it doesn’t already own in sporting goods and physical education equipment
marketer Sport Supply Group Inc. for $6.74 a share. On Sept. 7, Sport Supply closed at $5.95 a share.

Top-level turnover at Lands’ End

| John Fischer

No one at Lands’ End or its parent company, Sears Holdings Corp., is talking about why president/CEO Mindy Meads and the Dodgeville, WI-based cataloger

Invasion of the private equity firms

| Mark Del Franco

Private equity investors are coming into the industry with a strength and force not seen in nearly a decade. Though just 12 deals were orchestrated during