Fort Lauderdale

Those Coach designer items that look like a steal at the flea market? Well, Coach wants you to know that they're fakes. The pricey luxury goods company has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. against the corporation that owns the swap shop and its eccentric landlord, Preston Henn.

West Marine will open the biggest store in the company's history, a 50,000-sq.-ft flagship in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Due to open by the end of the year, the store will be twice as big as the company's current largest location and will be focused on serving both local and seasonal boating customers.

Most B-to-B marketers today are conductors of their multichannel orchestras. But conducting requires more than a baton, as it’s become far more complex with many new “instruments” at our disposal. Most of the money in our marketing budget used to be spent in the mail or on the phone, but in the past five years, online investments and marketing activities have skyrocketed. Consider the range of activities that we, as B-to-B marketers, may be involved in. Offline • direct mail; • telesales; • account-based relationship sales; • public relations; • sponsorships; • dealer networks; • retail stores; and • DRTV. Online • organic search/search

I’ve read a great deal recently about outsourcing in the B-to-B catalog business. It seems more and more leading-edge companies are turning to outsourcing for noncritical functions, from human resources to e-commerce operations. As many know, outsourcing lowers your risk, helps you acquire specialized services and can often lower costs.
But have you pondered what you can do as a potential outsource service to your customers? Most catalogers don’t spend much time considering what it is they do. Related to what you sell, there are opportunities to sell services to your customers in addition to your products. Consider the following examples.
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