Holiday highlights
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), 2006 holiday sales were up 4.4% from 2005. Whether that’s good news or bad depends on what you’d been
Marketing
Courting cross-channel Loyalty
It’s no secret that the number of cross-channel customers has grown exponentially in recent years to more than 45 million in 2005 and that they tend to
L.L. Bean leaning toward Canada
In continuing its international expansion plans, L.L. Bean has its sights set north of the border. Zane Shatzer, general manager of international new
The first five commandments of database content management
Welcome to a new quarterly column by Jim Wheaton, cofounder/principal of Wheaton Group, a Chicago-based data management, data mining, and decision sciences
Adding a persona touch
Ask anyone at women’s apparel cataloger/retailer Appleseed’s to describe Kate, and they will tell you that Kate is a baby boomer, a mother maybe even
LISTINGS
New lists The Cottage Shop Selling Limoges porcelain boxes and other collectibles, the Cottage Shop catalog has 20,000 12-month buyers. Customers, 95%
Zero switching costs are here
Why did Google pay $1.65 billion for YouTube? Why did Tom Freston lose the CEO job at MTV parent company Viacom? The same reason that Google outpaced
Guitar Center to Buy Woodwind & the Brasswind–Again
In the past two months, cataloger/retailer Guitar Center tried, but failed, to acquire South Bend, IN-based cataloger The Woodwind & the Brasswind. This week, though, its acquisition of the multititle mailer has been approved
Merz’s Smallflower.com Grows
Merz Apothecary is proof that even small, old-time retailers can become successful multichannel merchants. The company, which has had a shop in Chicago for more than 130 years,
RedEnvelope 3Q Sales, Income Up
Third-quarter net revenue for San Francisco-based gifts cataloger RedEnvelope increased 7.5%,