Management

WHAT GOT HIM HERE: A failed retail venture. After a toy store in San Francisco in the late 1980s went under, Bauschinger was left unemployed and virtually broke. “I was bankrupt, and the only idea I had at the time was, well, ‘there are these little Schuco [international toy manufacturer] cars and a lot of residents,’” Bauschinger recalls. So he took the little money he had left and placed a two-column, 6-inch coupon ad in the western edition of The New York Times to market the remaining inventory of toy cars. Response to the ad was much better than he ever could’ve imagined,

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on becoming more adept and adapting to the multichannel world. Part one appeared in our February issue, and part three will appear in our September issue. The world of direct marketing is changing quickly. Whole new analytical tools, benchmarks and ratios have become commonplace in measuring success. You must think cross-channel if you’re to be customer-centered. And above all else, if you’re a stand-alone cataloger or retail store operator, the corporate atmosphere is forcing you to rethink your internal culture. The opposite of a multichannel approach is a channel-centric one, where one channel dominates

Catalog Success: Where are your companies headquartered? Justus Bauschinger: We’re out here in the boondocks of Nevada. Northern Nevada — about 90 miles southeast of Reno. Yerington, Nevada. On Main Street. CS: What are the customer demographics for both catalogs? JB: They’re actually remarkably similar. I’d say 45-plus [years of age], well-to-do. On the Lilliput side, committed to really fine kinds of models and antique toys, or reproductions thereof. And on the Deutsche Optik side, in fact, I never knew until I took over the company from Mike Rifkin that there were so many optical freaks out there. Or enthusiasts, I’m sorry. I

If you own a catalog company and are looking to sell it, what’s the No. 1 thing you need to know about? Time’s up. It’s what the potential buyers are looking for in an acquisition, of course. So, just what are they looking for? During one of the first sessions of the Annual Conference for Catalog & Multichannel Merchants held May 19-22 in Kissimmee, Fla., “New Drivers of M&A Activity and What It Could Mean for You,” a panel of four bankers — David Solomon, co-CEO of Goldsmith Agio; Stuart Rose, managing director of Tully & Holland; Lee Helman, managing director of Financo; and

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

Most fulfillment processes are largely manual in nature, as only the very largest companies can justify advanced automation. Looking at the total cost of back-end order fulfillment — including direct and indirect labor, occupancy, and shipping supplies — total labor generally makes up 60 percent to 65 percent. That excludes any shipping costs because they distort the comparisons. Benchmarking ShareGroups, a proprietary program in which participants share benchmarking data, reveals that labor rates were typically around $7 an hour five years ago. Today, they’ve reached $12 to $13 an hour for many direct marketing businesses, plus a 20 percent benefit rate. But overall productivity

Catalog Success: Where’s the company headquartered? Suzanne Vlietstra: Chino, California. That’s about 30 miles east of Los Angeles. CS: What are your catalog’s customer demographics? SV: Our customer is female; 30 to 50 [years of age]; college-educated; hundred thousand dollar household income, or greater; owns two horses; and horses are her passion. CS: When was the company established? When did you begin mailing catalogs? SV: I started the company when I was in junior high school. It was incorporated in 1987 while I was in high school. I didn’t mail a catalog until 1991. I always wanted to. When I was

Editor’s Note: Beginning this week, we’ll bring you an operations and fulfillment tip of the week, courtesy of the consulting firm, F. Curtis Barry & Co. These tips will lead up to our inaugural interactive workshop for multichannel merchants on choosing direct commerce systems. (See below for more details.) — Paul Miller, editor-in-chief While converting from one order management system to another, it’s best not to try to convert the open customer orders and open purchase orders. Instead, rekey these to eliminate the risk of improper conversion. This also gives the staff a little extra “practice” with the system. Catalog Success and F.

HOW HE GOT STARTED IN THE CATALOG BUSINESS: Burns began his career with another science cataloger, Science Kit. Working in its bid sales group, he handled all the contracts and line-item bids with schools and school districts. Much of the educational market buys its science products via the bid process, Burns notes. (Science Kit acquired Edmund Scientific in 2001, and both are independently operated divisions of VWR Corp.) Following a brief hiatus with an Internet firm, Burns returned to cataloging in 2004 to become the brand manager of Edmund Scientific. He’s been with VWR for 10 years. WHAT CHALLENGES HE FACED UPON HIS RETURN

There’s postal, then there’s everything else. This is our everything else issue. Not quite everything, of course. This is our operations and fulfillment-themed issue. And considering that an overwhelming majority of catalog/multichannel merchants handle their own fulfillment according to our quarterly Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, which focuses on management issues, the buck stops here with fulfillment. In our special cover report, Kate Vitasek, who helps companies evaluate their operations, and call-center guru Liz Kislik provide advice on fulfillment-center benchmarking, performance metrics and call-center rep attentiveness. This issue offers plenty of the other everything else, too, including a multipoint plan on hiring interns, a