AT DIRECT, we love Archie McPhee and Co., Seattle’s self-proclaimed “Outfitters of Popular Culture.” Our glee was compounded when a mailer announcing the company’s new outlet included one of the most powerful words in marketing-FREE-liberally sprinkled throughout.
The mailing went to 17,000 Archie McPhee customers in early April, shortly after the store’s March 12 grand opening. In order to build and maintain traffic, the store issued a “passport”: Once a month customers can bring it in to be stamped, thereby earning a free trinket (a skull magnet in April, and a pair of hatching cockroaches in August, for example). Additional goodies are awarded based on graduated purchase amounts.
The small booklet (it actually is passport-sized) makes for good, if quick, reading.
Each of the six months covered has been given a theme. June, for example, is relics and icons month. Featured products include fighting rabbi punching puppets, wind-up sparking Nunzillas, happy squeak monks and Kali lunchboxes.
General manager Ann Woodard estimates that as of mid-April around 2% of the passports have made their way back to the store to be stamped, although she doesn’t know if they have had a direct impact on sales.
However, she says, the larger size of the store and walk-in, customer-friendlier displays (which now feature tilting and rotating bins), have definitely increased the average per-visit purchase amount.
Much to our chagrin here in New York, we-along with most of the nation-will not be able to participate in the in-store-only passport program. Anyone wishing to get a look at life in McPhee’s world can log on to the Web site, www.mcphee.com.
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