Jim and Joan Breakell own a mail order and retail jewelry business that is every entrepreneur’s dream. They design and manufacture all the products they sell, they have developed a multi-media business that will reach $3 million in annual sales this year, and they own a retail store in a top travel destination, the Historic Hill section of Newport, RI. The company mails one million catalogs a year, and sells directly from its Web site.
J. H. Breakell jewelry designs are inspired by nature, everyday objects and nautical motifs that reflect the company’s seaside Rhode Island location. Starfish, seahorses, lobsters, anchors, sandpipers, bees, dogwood blossoms, and sunflowers are among the objects available as pins, pendants or earrings.
A beach walker’s flip-flop sandal pendant was one of the first products and remains a best seller. The current 40-page catalog cover features a Celtic heart pendant, a tiny heart within a larger heart. An annual snowflake design has become a collectible and is newly available as a charm bracelet.
Most items are available as moderately priced ($40-$60) sterling silver earrings, pins, or pendants, or in 14kt gold. Luxurious bracelets and nautical belt buckles are available. Most pieces are cast in the lost wax process, where the hand-made original is put in a rubber mold to create a wax prototype. This goes into a plaster-like casting, where high heat vaporizes the wax away to create a permanent mold.
Jim Breakell is a professional silversmith who worked for manufacturers and a design studio, and then developed his own creations to be sold to stores.
Jim and Joan were married in 1980 and pooled their resources to start their company together. Like many entrepreneurs, they worked from their home in the early years. The secret of their early success was a series of small single-product space ads in top quality magazines: the New Yorker, Smithsonian, Yankee and others.
Jim says, “We ordered the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) media directory and made 3×5 cards on dozens of magazines, even trade journals and farm magazines.” They picked the magazines that had the best consumer mail order ads.
Breakell ads feature single items in a choice of sterling silver or 14kt gold. “These items are cast in the same molds, so it’s profitable to make both gold and silver,” Jim said. The first ad leader was a silver seagull bracelet. The best ads have always been in magazines with a 50-50 male-female circulation.
One of their early best sellers was a pin in the shape of a head of broccoli. When President George H. W. Bush said that he disliked broccoli and would take it off the White House menu, Jim and Joan sent one of the pins to Barbara Bush. The pin later went to the National Archives and was once displayed with other presidential gifts. In the 1992 election, Jim and Joan sent broccoli pins to candidates Al Gore and Bill Clinton. “We told them they might be able to use them,” Jim recalls. They still display the framed thank-you letters they received from Tipper Gore and President Clinton.
The catalog was an afterthought at first, Jim said. “We realized we needed something to send to inquirers from the ads, so we [initially just] printed individual product cards.”
Today, one million catalogs are mailed annually, divided into nine mailings. There are two catalog editions, and three covers designs.
Almost all prospecting names today are acquired through three cooperative catalog databases: Abacus, I-Behavior, and NextAction Network. Jim is enthusiastic about the value they offer by modeling, selecting $100-plus buyers who will respond well to the Breakell line, at prices that are lower than traditional list rentals. The ads still continue, including eight or 10 times per year in the New Yorker, but higher rates and lower response make ads less cost-effective than database rentals.
J. H. Breakell derives 80% of its sales from mail order, and about 20% from the retail store. The Web site and the 800 number produce most of the orders; Jim says that his staffers are somewhat surprised to open envelopes that contain checks. Their customer database is fine-tuned to identify such small segments such as a few thousand customers that are worth mailing even when they haven’t ordered for six or seven years.
“Our best list is the 12-month multi-buyers,” Jim says. “The single item buyers have bought for a special occasion and do not become really good repeat buyers.” Catalog sales from both the house customer list and the rented database prospects are excellent. In one 2005 holiday mailing, 52,000 customer names brought in an average order of $136. and 137,000 prospect names had an average order $150. The response rate was 2% on the customer list, and 0.7% on the rented names.
Sales for 2005 were “a healthy amount over $2 million,” Jim says, “and we’ll hit $3 million this year.”
Fred Morath is a direct mail consultant, copywriter and list specialist at Fred Morath Direct Marketing, Natick MA.
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