Annual Report Update: J. Crew

A few tidbits from the J. Crew annual report:

• Since 2002, catalog sales dropped from $108.5 million to $90.0 million in 2006. Since 2006, online sales increased from $139.5 million in 2002 to $218.7 million in 2006.

• Catalog circulation is making the slow descent that is common with other brands. In 2002, 66,000,000 catalogs were circulated. In 2006, 50,000,000 catalogs were circulated.
  

• Multichannel Information: "As of February 3, 2007, our customer database contained approximately 22.8 million individual customer names, of which 2.5 million were households that had placed a catalog or Internet order with us or made a store purchase from us within the previous twelve months, and 3.0 million email addresses of customers who had agreed to receive promotional emails from us."

• Targeted E-Mails are sent to Mens, Womens, Kids and Sale customers.

• 30% of online customers report receiving a catalog prior to their online purchase. To me, this seems like a reasonable rate for a business with a retail channel, though industry experts might feel that this percentage is way too low.

• There are no more liquidation catalogs --- liquidation is done online. Interesting!

• 22 in-home dates, a total circulation of 50 million, 5.4 billion pages circulated.

• 71 million website visits in 2006, verses 64 million website visits in 2005.

• 80% of merchandise is sourced in Asia.

• Comp store sales have increased by at least 13% for each of the past three seasons. Folks who think marketing drives a business need to look at these figures --- the merchandise assortment is driving this business. Customers buy merchandise they like.