The catalogs are coming!

| Sherry Chiger

After months of year-over-year decreases or minimal increases in volume, Catalog Tracker saw a double-digit increase in the number of consumer catalogs

The Ever-Changing Point of Sale: Multichannel Considerations for the Retail-Centric Organization

| Larry Daniel

In the previous article of this series, https://www.multichannelmerchant.com/crosschannel/lists/point_sale2, we argued that consumer expectations for retailers are rising. To respond successfully, retailers of the future have to dovetail their products and services into a multichannel format, and they need to connect to the consumer using an increasing array of marketing communications to convey a sincere interest in a lifetime relationship. To that end, we examined how retail-centric organizations could use trade-area analysis to determine improved retail/catalog and retail/online strategies.

Success Story: Modeling Prospects

| MCM staff

One of our clients, a multichannel merchant of high-end home decor that uses the co-op databases and vertical files aggressively, had an all-too-common problem: Mailing about 5 million-6 million prospecting names annually, it was seeing performance fall off as well as shrinking prospecting universes on continuations.

Three Rules of Thumb for Developing Circ Plans

| MCM staff

When developing a circulation plan, you want to balance mailings to your house file with the desired level of prospecting in order to maintain profitability, according to Bethany Beach, DE-based consultant Steve Lett. To that end, here are a few rules of thumb to consider: