Abacus

By Matt Griffin Now an eight-player field, consumer co-ops widen their offerings. What works best foryour catalog? With five established cooperative databases in the market, and three others trying to make headway in the past year, you might wonder what exactly separates each of these from one another. Whatever sets each co-op apart, the important thing to consider is that constant testing will prove whether the models offered by each company actually work. "Certainly you have to be willing to test the different databases, and you have to be willing to test different models," says Bob Webb, senior vice president of marketing for

By Carolyn Heinze In recent years, managers and brokers have been playing a larger role in catalogers' success. List brokers and managers have been offering value-added consulting services to catalogers for several years. But as competition intensifies and catalogers' budgets continue to tighten, list firms have had to step up to the plate to give mailers more services than ever before. Help for Smaller Catalogers Take, for example, Garrett Wade Co. The seller of high-end woodworking tools and accessories signed on with Millard Group last fall, and its senior vice president, Pete Segal, notes that Millard offers a more hands-on approach than other services

By Donna Loyle Unique merchandise, exceptional visual branding and a textbook e-commerce strategy give Boston Proper a leg up on its competition. Boston Proper CEO Michael Tiernan calls it "The Billion-Dollar Opportunity." His vision encompasses a multichannel strategy targeting affluent, self-assured, baby boomer women — a generation notorious for its conviction that it will stay vibrant and sexy long into old age. Tiernan's Boston Proper catalog and e-commerce site offer unique, fashion-forward and sexy apparel, shoes and accessories to well-educated and busy women primarily in the 35-to-55 age range. They may have children, husbands and

By Terrell Sellix A matchback is the process of matching order records back to mailing-tape records to determine the actual source of those orders. Matchbacks have been used for years on a limited basis to try to pinpoint the source of unknown orders: typically 5 percent to 20 percent of orders. With the advent of the Web and the increase in multichannel marketing, understanding where your orders and customers are coming from has become harder to learn — and yet more critical to know — than ever. The shift has brought matchbacks into the limelight of customer order-tracking and results analysis. This Special

Background: While working as a furniture maker and designer, John Economaki developed an allergy to wood dust and was forced to find a different outlet for his woodworking skills. When his proposal to design high-quality tools for a woodworking catalog was turned down because the tools would be too expensive, he took out a space ad in a woodworking magazine in 1983 to advertise two of the tools. The sales and catalog requests the ad generated convinced him to start his own catalog. Biggest career challenge: In 2001, Economaki took a short-term loan to move his manufacturing operation to a larger

© Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, March 2006 Interview by Matt Griffin Catalog Success: When was the catalog established? John Economaki: Bridge City Tool Works began with a single space ad in the November/December 1983 issue of Fine Woodworking. CS: What is your primary merchandise? JE: A proprietary line of non-powered, precision woodworking hand tools. CS: What is your annual circulation? JE: We no longer produce a "catalog" per se. One of the realities we faced post 9/11 was the contraction of our market. Today we mail several smaller 16-to-32 page offers with total circulation less than 1 million pieces. CS: How did

By Terrell Sellix A matchback is the process of matching order records back to mailing-tape records to determine the actual source of those orders. Matchbacks have been used for years on a limited basis to try to pinpoint the source of unknown orders: typically 5 percent to 20 percent of orders. With the advent of the Web and the increase in multichannel marketing, understanding where your orders and customers are coming from has become harder to learn — and yet more critical to know — than ever. The shift has brought matchbacks into the limelight of customer order-tracking and results analysis. This Special

© Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, March 2006 Interview by Matt Griffin Catalog Success: When was the catalog established? John Economaki: Bridge City Tool Works began with a single space ad in the November/December 1983 issue of Fine Woodworking. CS: What is your primary merchandise? JE: A proprietary line of non-powered, precision woodworking hand tools. CS: What is your annual circulation? JE: We no longer produce a "catalog" per se. One of the realities we faced post 9/11 was the contraction of our market. Today we mail several smaller 16-to-32 page offers with total circulation less than 1 million pieces. CS: How did

Be sure to tell your service bureau before the merge/purge if you'd made changes to your circulation strategy. Recently a catalog client became upset because her company's merge/purge result had changed so dramatically from the history to the current job. After a long conversation, we found out the company had added a new list. She never had rented it before, and it was so dramatically different from the other lists in her plan that the merge/purge results startled both her and us. A single list can make a big difference in the final analysis. —Dan Minnick, director of postal operations, Abacus

Be sure to tell your service bureau before the merge/purge if you'd made changes to your circulation strategy. Recently a catalog client became upset because her company's merge/purge result had changed so dramatically from the history to the current job. After a long conversation, we found out the company had added a new list. She never had rented it before, and it was so dramatically different from the other lists in her plan that the merge/purge results startled both her and us. A single list can make a big difference in the final analysis. —Dan Minnick, director of postal operations, Abacus