Just one year after being acquired by now-defunct online marketer Petopia, upscale pet gifts cataloger In the Company of Dogs was acquired by $100 million Medfield, MA-based Potpourri Holdings.
Although terms of the deal were not announced, Potpourri CEO Jack Rosenfeld says his company purchased Company of Dogs’ assets from the bank handling the liquidation of San Francisco-based Petopia, which ceased operations Feb. 6. Company of Dogs is the 11th cataloger acquired by Potpourri since 1998, when it was purchased by HIG Capital, a private-equity group with a $1 billion in assets. Potpourri’s other titles include needlework products catalog The Stitchery, general gifts title Expressions, and horse-related gifts book Back in the Saddle.
Potpourri has hired two of the cataloger’s merchants, who will be based in Medfield. Because Potpourri’s two distribution centers are already at peak capacity, third-party operations provider New Roads will continue to handle Company of Dogs’ fulfillment.
Company of Dogs last mailed a catalog in November, Rosenfeld says, but Potpourri plans to drop a 48-page spring catalog this month. Rosenfeld says the seven-year-old title has more than 400,000 names in its buyer file; the average order is about $100.
Potpourri’s first order of business is returning to In the Company of Dogs’ original logo. Petopia had changed it from an elegant typeface to a more modern, spare logo (pictured above). “But we think Dogs’ customers recognize the old logo more readily,” Rosenfeld says. “And besides, the original logo better fits its upscale product line.”