Across the street and into the warehouse

| MCM staff

Time to visit the lifeblood of any catalog business: the distribution center. But to get to Orchard Brands’ DC from headquarters, you must cross the street.

Lillian to get even more personal

| Jim Tierney

It’s no secret that Lillian Vernon takes pride in personalization. After all, the venerable gifts and housewares cataloger was founded 56 years ago around

Sometimes One More Mailing Can Be Too Many

| Todd Miller

To prepare for peak season, Lenser recommends that highly seasonal businesses maximize the number of contacts to the house file, mailing separately versioned catalogs every four weeks and perhaps even every three weeks. But one of its clients, a multichannel school supply retailer, bucked the trend during back-to-school 2006.

Shoes spin-off for Schnee’s

| Mark Del Franco

Nestled in the American Rockies, hunting products retailer Schnee’s is a Montana landmark that’s had a catalog for nearly 20 years. The multichannel merchant is setting off on a new path with its spin-off title Shoes for Life.

New dogs learn old tricks

| Ken Magill

One of the most telling examples of how far e-commerce has evolved in the past decade happened this summer at the eTail 2007 conference in Washington.

Everything old is new again

| MCM staff

As soon as I arrived in Washington for the eTail conference last month, I was ready to be hit with the latest and greatest online technologies and strategies. And while there was plenty of talk about e-mail strategies, live assistance techniques, and Flex vs. AJAX, the big buzz about the show seemed to be

22nd ANNUAL MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT AWARDS

| MCM staff

In celebrating this year’s crop of Multichannel Merchant Award winners, one thing is clear: As sophisticated as our industry has become during the past

July Sales Roundup

| MCM staff

For the most part, July was a kind month to the publicly traded companies tracked by MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT. So let

Back-to-School Shoppers Studying Direct Channels

| Tim Parry

Good news for catalogers hoping for a hot back-to-school season. A survey conducted by customer loyalty research consultancy Brand Keys shows considerable increases in the percent of consumers who plan to use catalog and online channels for their back-to-school shopping.

FALL or NOTHING

| MCM staff

The harsh new postal rates imposed in May are three months old. Mailers should be used to them, right? Think again. Many are still reeling and figuring