Matt Griffin

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

From starting a mail-order video company when she was in graduate school to running the catalog business for $250 million outdoor gear multichannel marketer Patagonia, Morlee Griswold has had plenty of experience selling direct. Following are her tips on how to get started, and succeed, in the catalog business: For new catalogers: Work with the best vendors available. “Network ahead of time, get good recommendations and really do your homework before you choose your vendors,” Griswold says. Since each piece of the direct marketing puzzle has become so specialized, it’s likely that a small catalog startup will need to rely heavily on vendors and/or partners. “If

© Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, April 2007 Interview by Matt Griffin Catalog Success: When was the A.G. Russell catalog established? Goldie Russell: The mail order company was started in 1964. He didn’t actually mail a catalog for a period of time. Mostly it was space ads. I don’t know when you printed the first catalog, but I imagine that wasn’t until the ‘70s. A.G. Russell: Actually it was the late ‘60s. As soon as I had enough names to start mailing. You’d have to define catalog. I don’t know how it was defined in the late ‘60s, but I was

Lillian Vernon’s year-plus road to recovery has seen a mix of return-to-roots and get-with-the-times changes. Many have worked, as president/CEO Mike Muoio reports. Here are three additional improvements the company has made: 1. Change the catalog size to preserve the brand. In 2004, Lillian Vernon changed the trim size of its catalog from its traditional 8-inch-by-8-inch format to an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch size. But the change had almost no impact on sales, and since the brand had been associated with 8-inch-by-8-inch books for more than 40 years, Muoio and his team reverted back to the old format last October. “People recognize 8-by-8 catalogs as Lillian Vernon books,”

Background: After his favorite whetstone was lost in a move from California to Arkansas in 1964, A.G. Russell struggled to find another stone like it in local hardware stores. He ended up ordering a number of the stones direct from the manufacturer. Assuming other knife enthusiasts would be interested in buying them, he sought to sell them via space ads in outdoor magazines. Soon he acquired a stock of knives and found himself in the mail order knife business, as well. Following nearly 25 years of ups and downs, Russell asked Goldie, his second wife and a former art teacher, to join the

BACKGROUND: Officially, Arnie Zaslow has worked for ATD-American Co. since he was 16; that’s 60 years, according to the plaque recently mounted in his office. But Zaslow is fond of saying he was born into the business, as his father founded the institutional and government supplies company right about the time his youngest son entered the world. Now Zaslow runs the business with his two older brothers. BIGGEST CAREER CHALLENGES: • Securing better margins: For about the first 25 years the company existed, it secured business through competitive bids. “Those were so competitive, the product markups were infinitesimally small,” Zaslow recalls.

More Blogs