DoubleClick To Be Acquired by Hellman & Friedman

| MCM staff

On April 25, New York-based DoubleClick has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by San Francisco-based private equity firm for $8.50 in cash for each share or $1.1 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

Getting Bigger Response from Small Businesses

| MCM staff

The business owners who make up the $3.9 trillion small-business market behave differently from consumer shoppers and corporate buyers, says Stephen Diorio, a partner in Westport, CT-based marketing company Profitable Channels. They generally don

A Tale of Two Databases: Marketing and Operational

| MCM staff

In keeping with the move toward multichannel marketing, many catalogers are converting their house files into customer marketing databases, says Arthur Middleton Hughes, vice president/solutions architect for Richardson, TX-based database marketing firm KnowledgeBase Marketing. Some are using advanced techniques to increase customer response, retention, and cross-sells. In return they are seeing increased rates of retention and increased order sizes.

Heirs Put Tog Shop, A.B. Lambdin Up for Sale

| Mark Del Franco

The heirs of Tog Shop founder Emory Rylander, who started the catalog in 1950, have put the family business up for sale. And according to Carl Tott, president of the Americus, GA-based cataloger/retailer, a party is already working on an agreement to acquire the Tog Shop catalog.

1-800-Flowers.com Reports a Loss

| MCM staff

Due to increased operating expenses and lower gross profit margin, Westbury, NY-based flowers and gifts marketer 1-800-Flowers.com (NASDAQ:FLWS) posted a net loss at $2.0 million for the quarter ended March 27, compared with net income of $1.9 million last year.