At Direct’s annual consumer list roundtable recently, participants mulled the issue of how creativity and merchandising affect a catalog’s performance.
Participants included Lynn Rovelstad, president, Accudata America; Andy Ostroy, chairman and CEO, ALC of New York, LLC; Peter Carney, president, Carney Direct; Bob Castle, consultant, Bob Castle Assoc. (moderator); Lon Mandel, marketing services officer, ClientLogic Specialists Marketing Services; Rosemarie Montroy, CMO, Direct Media; Kathy Duggan-Josephs, president, D-J Associates; Geoff Batrouney, executive vice president, Estee Marketing Group; Dennis Bissig, president, Mokrynskidirect; and John Knoebel, president, Triangle Marketing Services Inc.
For more from both the consumer and business-to-business list roundtables, see the August issue of Direct magazine.
MONTROY: A couple of months ago, we had to do a research project for a client. A bunch of our consumer people got in a room with piles of catalogs and we looked through them and decided what was the [focus of the] product mix. I decided at the end of that exercise that just about everyone is a general merchant.
BISSIG: And that was not our business. That was not what catalogs started as.
BATROUNEY: To the point of creativity and merchandising, [there used] to be a golden thread between a consumer and say, the LL Bean catalog, and there was something very special about that relationship. Between the product line and the customer, magic happened. But with the Internet buyer, the trigger gets pulled after a Google search, after a price comparison. The brand and the golden thread doesn’t matter. If its $49.95 here and $39.95 there, guess who gets the order? Bang.
BISSIG: It comes down to merchandising. If they don’t have good merchandise it doesn’t make any difference. If their merchandise is going out to compete with the big box stores, if they’re going away from their niche business and trying to be mass merchants, they deserve to have issues. Now they’re going to go up against the department stores and K-Mart and all the rest. They’re going to be purely price sensitive and they’re going to lose, because they can’t be as competitive as the big boxes. But if these people go back to being merchants, they should be able to stand up to any competition if their product is unique.
OSTROY: One of my favorite things today is to go to Wal-Mart. I asked my wife, why is it every time I walk into Wal-Mart I walk out with a bill for $187? I’ll go in to buy an umbrella and my wagon is full of umbrellas, socks, bottles of water. Now, we’re not buying things I might shop for from J. Crew or Williams-Sonoma. But the big boxes have their place for commodity type items. If I want a pair of black socks, I want to get them as cheaply as possible. I don’t care how much money I make or don’t make. But the direct marketing industry shouldn’t necessarily fear big box retailers or the Internet. There are other things that I want to spend money on, and I want unique merchandise.
MONTROY: Retailers are getting very creative. Most of them have Web sites, so they can send a catalog and [the customer] doesn’t have to go shop at the [brick and mortar] store. They can order online — and use that $50 off coupon. We’re starting to track retail catalogs and they’re very good.
BISSIG: But [in retail], it’s getting to the point where, [for example], if you go into any Federated store, it all looks the same. As they consolidate, you’re just going to go, “Gee, I’ve seen that before in that other store.” They’re going to lose their creativity, but they don’t care. We’ve got to care about what we’re doing.
DUGGAN-JOSEPHS: The other part of the puzzle is customer service. You can find a new customer who likes your product, but if you don’t service them, they’re a one-time customer–and nobody makes money on one-time customers. That’s what can differentiate you. If Lands’ End customer service is better than LL Bean, you’re going to buy the t-shirt from Lands’ End.
MANDEL: I think it depends on the consumer. There are consumers who are willing to give up customer service for price. There are companies who don’t have a value proposition, they just have a store where you come in and shop.
