A Chat With March’s Profile, Martin Smith, CEO of MindWare

CS: What steps has MindWare taken to offset the rising costs of goods (e.g., postage, paper) in producing a catalog?
MS: Again, I don’t think we’re doing anything unique in this area, but we did in ’07, because of the postal increase, reduce our trim size (approximately a half-inch slice off the side, so the pages are slightly narrower). Not a dramatic change, but obviously when you hold an ’06 catalog vs. an ’07 side-by-side, then it’s very evident. I don’t actually know to what degree our customers noted that change, but we did make that change for savings purposes. We’ve also been pushing hard on trying to develop co-mailing opportunities in order to get bigger volumes, and therefore better postal discounts.