Friday Tidbits

Gliebers Dresses: If you're looking for older articles, just click this link, and you'll get every article.

Eddie Bauer Bankruptcy: Some of you have sent me e-mails about this. One of the biggest challenges of the bricks/clicks multichannel model is debt. Now granted, Eddie Bauer's debt came from the Spiegel meltdown earlier in the decade, but the concept still holds --- you take a largely variable cost model (catalog or e-commerce) and build out a fixed cost channel financed with debt. Yuk. E-commerce is going through multichannel evolution as we speak, as customers migrate from e-mail to social media, static websites to mobile websites, etc. Let the lesson of retail/debt be heard. E-commerce will have very different dynamics without as much debt/fixed-costs as newer online channels invade, but the shift between channels, in my opinion, will happen faster and with very different and potentially unstable consequences --- in social media, take MySpace as an example.

Internet Retailer Conference: Thanks to Internet Retailer for inviting me to speak, I'm always grateful for these opportunities. If you want to see what folks thought of the conference, as it was happening, give this a read.

Internet Retailer (IRCE) Presentation Tidbits

Here's a few things you might find interesting from my presentation today. The session was about the web's growing importance and impact on catalogers (and retail stores). The audience was heavily skewed to catalogers. Lou Weiss of The Vitamin Shoppe did a very nice job of discussing the topic from the standpoint of a CMO in the trenches!


Question #2: You are triple-booked for a meeting at 10:00am. Which of the following three meetings would you attend?

1. Meeting to determine if October catalog is 116, 120, or 124 pages.
2. Meeting with paid search vendor to go over Spring 2009 performance.
3. Meeting with e-mail marketing team to go over versioning for upcoming campaign.

Audience overwhelming responded for #2.


Question #8: You are working on your CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) succession plan. Which individual is most likely to be considered.

1. Catalog Marketing Director with 24 years of experience.
2. Online Marketing Director with 8 years of experience.
3. Social Media Manager with 2 years of experience.

Audience overwhelming responded for #2.


Question #9: You are required to downsize one position. Which position will you eliminate?

1. Catalog Marketing Director with 24 years of experience.
2. Online Marketing Director with 8 years of experience.
3. Social Media Manager with 2 years of experience.

By a narrow margin, the audience voted for #1, then #3.


Question #13: If you stopped mailing catalogs, what would happen:

1. Your business would close.
2. Your business would be damaged.
3. Your business would be more profitable.
4. Your business could grow.

Almost nobody in the audience voted for #1, maybe 1 or 2 people raised their hand out of 250 folks.