Order Fulfillment

Under the Canopy’s corporate mission is to offer stylish consumers a way to help eliminate pesticides from their homes, their bodies and the planet. Its corporate history, however, demonstrates that even merchants with timely and unique ideas such as this can get temporarily blindsided by business variables beyond their control. This Boca Raton, FL-based catalog sells high-quality, fashion-forward apparel, bed and bath ware, gifts, footwear and accessories made of organic fiber grown without the use of toxic chemicals. But the company almost didn’t make it out of the start-up phase. A fulfillment fiasco threatened to sideline the business early in its development.

If you set your catalog’s shipping and handling (S&H) charges based on competitors’ rates, industry standards or consumer acceptance, you may need to update your strategy, say officials of The Direct Marketing Association (DMA). This is especially true for your online orders. Here’s why: Today’s consumers are more knowledgeable about S&H charges, and some even have won class-action lawsuits against companies that they think overcharge. To combat this consumer backlash against high S&H rates, The DMA advises the following when devising fees: • Make them reasonable. “You must be able to clarify and justify to consumers that your S&H rates have

Problem: It took Mac’s Antique Auto Parts several weeks to fulfill catalog requests. Solution: Implemented QuikPak’s catalog-fulfillment service. Result: Prospects now get catalogs within seven days of their requests. Multi-title niche cataloger Mac’s Antique Auto Parts, a supplier of replacement parts for vintage and classic Ford vehicles, couldn’t seem to deliver catalogs to requesters in less than four weeks. That was before January 2001 when it implemented a new catalog-fulfillment service. Back then, Mac’s mailed its 12 catalog titles using bulk rates through a service located near its Lockport, NY, headquarters. Because each of the catalog titles has a different weight, it took

Many metrics are used to run a profitable catalog business. For example, an apparel company may set a goal for its overall return rate of 22 percent, while a gift mailer may strive for less than 6 percent. But one thing is universal among catalogers: The ideal metrics or ratios are those that lead to profitable income statements. After all, if you manage by the ratios, the dollars will take care of themselves. Remember, dollars go into the bank, not percentages. Key metrics to calculate and watch include service levels (e.g., how long customers wait in your contact center’s queue), response levels (e.g.,

With world conditions and the economy in upheaval, business has been tough for most catalogers lately. This month I’ll focus on several ideas to improve your bottom line. Although it’s always important to stay focused on long-term growth and strategic development of your business, some of you obviously will have to take action now to ensure short-term profitability. The following suggestions may produce only a temporary increase in your profitability, however, so be cautious about any potential impact down the road. Cut Cautiously 1. Improve your margins. The No. 1 expense line on your profit-and-loss statement (P&L) most likely is cost of goods.

Sweater snags, off-spec measurements, unglued sock liners in sneakers, moldy wooden toys, and incorrect care, content or country-of-origin labels — poor-quality merchandise can make a cataloger reluctant to buy again from a particular manufacturer or vendor. The quality issue has long plagued merchants, says Doug Easly, national sales and marketing director at Quality Corrections and Inspections (QCI; www.qualitycorrections.com), a Duncansville, PA-based firm that salvages and refurbishes goods for some of the largest catalog companies. What can you do when your goods arrive in less-than-top-quality condition, and how can you ensure that the problem never surfaces again? Easly offers the following

Crystal-ball gazing is not a widely practiced art in the world of fulfillment. Being very much a tactical discipline, fulfillment is more focused on the here and now. With calls having to be answered in 20 seconds and orders to be shipped in 24 hours, fulfillment is a near real-time, decision-making process — one that historically owes as much to operational flexibility as it does to operational planning. In the catalog industry, marketing innovation has spawned major developments in fulfillment operations. Marketers have been the dogs that wag an operation’s tail, and in the end it’s the marketers who determine the direction fulfillment

As margins continue to be squeezed, reducing expenses has become a major topic of discussion among catalogers. In fact, many have put into place specific edicts to reduce operational expenses. That said, the purpose of this article is to offer ideas that can help you attack one major aspect of your company’s cost structure — vendor inbound freight (VIF). By properly managing your company’s VIF, you could make the difference between a marginally good and a very good year for your catalog. Current State VIF usually is included on the profit-and-loss statement as part of overall inventory costs. This low visibility line item normally

The following is a checklist to help you develop cost-effective and customer service-oriented shipping plans. The direct-to-consumer in-dustry finds itself at a crossroads in terms of shipping and handling (S&H) policies and charges. Specifically, some studies show consumers are refusing to place orders if the S&H charges are perceived to be out of line with those charged by competitors. But S&H is a necessity for most catalogers. It often represents 8 percent to 10 percent of a catalog’s average order and net sales, and it offsets some of the pick-and-pack labor, outbound freight charges, and packing materials needed to ship consumers their orders.

Niche cataloger Shari’s Berries International guarantees that its chocolate-covered strawberries reach recipients a mere day after they’re dipped—a business plan that puts a heavy emphasis on reliable address data. Indeed, according to Lowell Feil, vice president of operations, until May 2002 his department experienced delivery address problems with about 10 percent of its orders. Though the company’s FedEx shipping system caught nearly all of these during the package-scanning process, catalog call center reps then had to call and re-verify the addresses. This not only strained call center resources, it often resulted in delayed product shipments and ruined customer surprises. Company executives