Charming Shoppes Starts One Title, Shutters Another
(Multichannel Merchant) A week after launching its Lane Bryant catalog, Charming Shoppes yesterday announced it would close its Regalia women’s apparel catalog. Regalia is one of the smaller titles Charming Shoppes acquired when it bought Crosstown Traders in May 2005.
Keeping Regalia afloat did not make sense because of its size, said Charming Shoppes senior vice president of finance Steve Wishner. “You put as much time and effort into a small catalog as you do a big catalog,” he notes.
“We looked at the demographics of the Regalia customer database and saw there was a good chance its customers could be migrated into our other catalog databases,” Wishner added. According Regalia’s data card, the cataloger has 118,403 names and 65,758 12-month buyers and an average sale of $92.
Regalia’s employees will be transferred to other Charming Shoppe titles, Wishner said. Crosstown Traders’ other women’s apparel catalogs include Lew Magram and Old Pueblo Traders; it also mails the Figi’s food and gifts catalog.
Meanwhile, Charming Shoppes finally unveiled its Lane Bryant catalog.
The company, which has owned and operated the Lane Bryant stores since 2001, got back the trademark to that catalog title from Redcats USA in October. Charming Shoppes mailed its first 112-page Lane Bryant catalog in late October.
