E-mail for Unmentionables

While most business-to-consumer marketers are figuring out how best to augment holiday sales with e-mail, Bare Necessities is leading with it.

The undergarment merchant was a boutique brick-and-mortar retailer until 1998 when it launched BareNecessities.com and began building an e-mail file. Today, the Avenel, NJ-based firm’s e-mail address count runs into six figures. And e-mail is its main customer-retention vehicle.

The company