Multichannel Surfing

In covering the multichannel business, we at MCM tend to use the terms “marketer” and “merchant” interchangeably. But are they really the same thing?

Not according to Dick Anderson, former president of Lands’ End. In the Businessweek article Customer Service: Marketer vs. Merchant, customer service guru Jeanne Bliss recalled her experience working at apparel direct merchant in the mid 1980s. more

I’m the lonely MCM Awards guy, and I’m waiting for your entries. I kind of feel like Charlie Brown, camped out at the mail box, hoping the Little Red-Haired Girl will send him a Valentine.

Maybe I’m just being wishy-washy. I know there were a lot of great catalogs and e-commerce sites that are worthy of getting Gold or Silver in the 2010 MCM Awards. And I’m sure those merchants are just waiting until the last minute to get their entries done.

Some merchants be afraid to enter, thinking they will have to compete against titans like Orvis, L.L. Bean and Harry & David. But we made some changes in categories that we hope help the Daveys of multichannel retail compete with the Goliaths. more

Remember when mail order was really mail order? Now it seems old-school to phone in an order vs. going online.

But once upon a time you had to mail in your check, money order or even cash, along with your printed order form. (Then of course you had to wait several weeks for your order to arrive. Ah, those were the days!)

For a peek back into yesteryear, check out this vintage order envelope from National Bellas Hess. more

Long before Catalog Choice, long before the DMA’s initiative to cut mailbox clutter, comedian Andrew Kennedy’s father had this whole whole junk mail removal thing all figured out.

Here’s a clip from Kennedy’s Comedy Central special (scroll down, the coding is a little funky!). Not sure if this worked, but the idea was brilliant, and I’m sure the postman in New Canaan, CT was a little confused.

By the way, Kennedy in in Comedy Central’s Stand-up Showdown. You can vote for his video here and see his entire special on Jan. 31.

Talk show host David Letterman took one of Neiman Marcus’s $25,000 cupcake cars for a spin around his set last week. And Dave put that cupcake through its paces, too—well, about as much as you can push a vehicle with a 24-volt electric motor that tops out at 7 mph.

The buyers at the high-end cataloger/retailer probably didn’t envision the drivers of the sweet little cupcake cars ramming into desks and toppling Christmas trees. But naturally, that’s what Dave did. more

Are you ready to be recognized? It’s time to enter your catalogs and Websites in the MCM Awards!

In honor of the 25th Anniversary of the competition, we’ve made significant improvements to the program, including a new digital entry process, revamped categories to level the playing field, enhanced evaluation feedback from the judges, and much more. more