working gear

| Ernie Schell

Harnessing Chaos New killer app battles the Godzilla of multi-channel merchandising; everybody wins!Every once in a while a system comes along that is

OPERATIONS

| Mark Del Franco

Lessons from last Avoiding online fulfillment snafus this holiday season As the 20th-century philosopher George Santayana said, those who do not learn

CrossTalk

| MCM staff

XML is a hot favorite for e-commerce transactions, but universal usage standards remain elusiveA pianist can rely on hours of practice and his own neural

Crutchfield, Winter/Spring 2000

| Sabrina Home

Crutchfield, the complete car stereo and home audio/video products catalog, has earned its reputation by getting straight to the point: offering customers

Rack & Roll

| Rama Ramaswami

What’s trendy, up-to-the-minute, and to die for? A distribution center that’s equipped to the max for e-commerce, of course. Take a tour of SubmitOrder.com’s

Tote Up the Tab

| Rama Ramaswami

Just as online retailers are getting the hang of the physical aspects of fulfillment, along comes another surprise: the sheer expense of the whole business.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

| MCM staff

Skittish second quarter M&A activity up just slightly Mergers and acquisitions activity was nearly as subdued during the second quarter of the year as

CATALOG STOCKS RISING – slowly

| Mark Del Franco

At first glance, the numbers indicate that direct marketing stocks are on a roll: up 64.1% over the past 12 months, much higher than Standard & Poor’s

THE CATALOG AGE 100: THE HEAVY HITTERS

| Paul Miller

B-to-b reigns again; consolidation slows somewhatAs in 1997 and 1998, the strength of the business-to-business sector was the big news among the companies