A Chat With May’s Profile, Suzanne Vlietstra, president of Hobby Horse Clothing Co.

CS: When will the catalog be mailed this year?
SV: End of April. And it should’ve been the beginning of March. That’s like a giant fumble for somebody who’s been cataloging a long time, and yet I didn’t anticipate it and our product makes it change so much. I figured it was better to send out a catalog with products that exist than black holes in it.
We’re not mailing millions of catalogs. We’re not analyzing one-tenth of 1 percent response. I think a lot of small catalogs, that have food stuff, the creative products that changes often, you find yourself reinventing yourself all the time. After all these years in business, I’m having to seriously reinvent myself this year. And I didn’t anticipate that.