Channel | Direct Marketing | Print

(Multichannel Merchant) During the next five years, retail store sales are projected to grow by 2.4%. In contrast, e-commerce sales are expected to climb by 13%-14%.

(Multichannel Merchant) With a postal rate increase on the horizon, you might expect catalogers to be agonizing over their mailing plans and slashing circulation. But so far, list industry executives say, that's not the case.

New Yorker writer Roger Angell steadfastly refuses to resume his once-annual tradition of encapsulating the just-ended year into a series of verses, and readers are poorer for it. With a tip of the Loose Cannon derby in his direction, I offer what might have been

Dear 1940 Graduate: Your class graduated right into the middle of the greatest world crisis in five generations! Your are taking your first jobs just when Business is caught in the cross-currents of a war-time boom. You are casting your first ballots

Retailer Dave's Soda and Pet City made its first move into the multichannel world last month with an e-commerce site to promote the national launch of Simply the Best dog food.

We've mentioned it already. But it may still be a shock when this issue of Direct arrives in your mailbox. It has the same writers as it did before people

RSS may stand for Really Simple Syndication (among other less-descriptive things), but there's nothing simple about selling the automated Web feed processes

Sure, many of the big players in direct response have embraced database marketing's best practices. They're extending analytic capabilities across all mediums and integrating marketing channels into a single file. But they'd better watch their backs: Small and mid-tier companies

Why are direct marketing firms so often so bad at press relations? No one is saying every DMer must have a PR rep, but if a professional communicator is part of a company's marketing, is it too much to ask that they be at least competent?

A customer buys a fire-engine-red sweater from your Web site. Then that person exchanges it at your retail store for something more subdued, perhaps in mauve. Is the experience seamless? It should be.