Overland Park

A columnist for Retail Online Integration, George founded HAGUEdirect, a marketing agency. Previously he was a member of the Shawnee Mission, Kan.-based consulting and creative agency J. Schmid & Assoc. He has more than 10 years of experience in circulation, advertising, consulting and financial strategy in the catalog/retail industry. George's expertise includes circulation strategy, mailing execution, response analysis and financial planning. Before joining J. Schmid, George worked as catalog marketing director at Dynamic Resource Group, where he was responsible for marketing and merchandising for the Annie's Attic Needlecraft catalog, the Clotilde Sewing Notions catalog, the House of White Birches Quilter's catalog and three book clubs. George also worked on corporate acquisitions.


It's official: J.C. Penney scrapped its every-day-low-price strategy for the rollercoaster world of markups and markdowns. Merchants, marketers and graphic artists waited with bated breath, hoping J.C. Penney could make this strategy work. Imagine the time it would save! Price changes and errors would be a thing of the past.

The Roman Catholic Church needs a serious brand makeover. It's gotten so bad that the previous CEO, aka Pope Benedict, gave his three weeks notice. Since he couldn't cite wanting to spend more time with his family, he intends to devote his life to prayer. Prayer? This brand really needs help. In selecting its new boss, the church's board of directors, aka the College of Cardinals, had to pull a rabbit out of their mitre. And did they.

Kent, Wash.-based Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) will open its first-ever Kansas store in Overland Park. The 23,500-sq.-ft. store is slated to open in fall 2013. It will feature a bike shop and a seasonal gear rental department. Additional stores are slated to open this fall in San Antonio; Cincinnati; Woodbridge, Va.; and Medford, Ore. Currently, REI operates 123 retail stores in 30 states. SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS DDI's RetailDesignDiva blog is dedicated to retail design issues, opinions and frustrations of the day.Read the Diva's recent rantings. DDI's Retail Design Newswire Sign up

4:42 PM MT—Recreational Equipment, Inc. will open its first Kansas store this fall, in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City. The Overland Park store will be at the intersection of West 135th St. and Lamar Avenue at Prairiefire at Lionsgate. It will offer a bike shop with assembly and repair services, as well as a seasonal gear rental department for customers to test new outdoor activities. Similar to its other stores, REI Overland Park will sell top brands in camping, climbing, cycling, fitness, hiking, paddling and travel, including its own REI brand and Novara bike products. The 23,500

A federal judge in Kansas has sentenced the former CEO of the Retail Grocers Association to more than three years in prison for stealing $1.3 million. John J. Cunningham got a 46-month sentence after pleading guilty previously to three counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.

Clothiers have worked the catalog and retail combination for decades. Knowing the strength of multiple channels, they were early adopters of online marketing. But in multichannel branding, have they maintained their lead? To find out, we recently conducted a secret shopper exploration of Eddie Bauer, J.Crew and Anthropologie. (For the first part of this ongoing series, check out our Multichannel Shopper investigation of food merchants in our January 2009 issue, which is also archived at CatalogSuccess.com.)

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