Alan Rimm-Kaufman

Tired of reading about what a tough year it’s been for so many businesses across the board? Frustrated with your own results? Scared about the economy? Whether or not you’re struggling as much as others, here’s a little tonic: our annual best-of feature, in which we’ve pulled what we believe to be the 50 best and most implementable tips of the year from Catalog Success magazine as well as our weekly e-newsletter, Tactics & Tips. There’s nothing fancy here. Each paragraph is taken from a particular story that’s referenced, so you can turn or click back to reread the full story or act on

Suppose you want to test your homepage. Pick two areas: your strapline and your “why shop” box. Then indicate those regions in the HTML source with invisible JavaScript snippets. This takes a few minutes. Next, load different versions of each region into GWO. We’ll assume you’ve picked three different straplines (the slogan beneath your logo) and three different graphical “why shop” presentations. Strapline Variations: “ Merchandise breadth: “The Widget Superstore” “ Established and trustworthy: “Your Trusted Widget Source Since 1984” “ Post-sale support: “Helping You Choose, Install and Enjoy Widgets” ”Why Shop” Variations “ Guarantee: “110% Satisfaction Guarantee — Your Order and

Below is a comprehensive list of all the articles published in Catalog Success magazine in 2007. If you would like to view stories by issue date, click here. You can also use the Article Archive to search by keyword or topic. CATALOGER PROFILES Cover Stories Chinaberry: “Reinventing the Wheel” by Paul Miller, January After 5/Surf to Summit: “Kayaking and Cocktails” by Paul Miller, February Patagonia: “Shiny Happy People” by Matt Griffin, May Garnet Hill: “A Natural Issue” by Carolyn Heinze, June Fair Indigo: “Playing Fair” by Paul Miller, August The Nailco Group: “More Than Skin Deep” by Carolyn

Below, our annual index of all stories that appeared in Catalog Success throughout 2006, including this issue. (For easy reference, use the print screen.) Cataloger Profiles Cover Stories United Receptacle: “B-to-B Goes ‘Plug and Play’” by Alicia Orr Suman, January Reiman Publications: “The Synergistic Approach” by Alicia Orr Suman, February Boston Proper: “Billion-Dollar Opportunity” by Donna Loyle, May Spiegel Brands: “How Spiegel Recovered” by Paul Miller, June Smarthome Direct: “Growth the Smart Way” by Matt Griffin, July J&L Industrial Supply: “Shaped Up, Shipped Out” by Paul Miller, August Northern Safety Co.: “Safely Ahead of the Game” by Matt Griffin, September AmeriMark Direct: “Steady

&000;&000; Over the years, I've made plenty of catalog purchases, but rarely simply because I was a catalog business editor. I only turned to catalogs when I needed something unusual or came across a killer sale. Otherwise, I bought my mainstream goods off the rack. Today, that's changed. And the two vehicles that have impacted me the most have been the coming of age of e-mail and the remarkable ease of search engines. I find e-mail's impact on me surprising, because less than five years ago, I'd delete any personal e-mail from just about any address I didn't recognize. But now, I

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