Creating a Profitable Catalog

by Jack Schmid

Includes information on concept and creative development, design and production, merchandising, circulation planning, database marketing, operations, and financial management. This book analyzes these... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0658000640
• ISBN13: 9780658000645
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Just About Everything You Need to Know

Virtually every company that makes things has to ahve a catalog. It's the thing that tells your customers what you do and gives them the detailed information that they need to make a decision. Catalogs began with the mail order industry where the technology grew to measure sales return per square inch of paper. Over time, the professionals learned what worked and what didn't. Then when everything was working pretty well, the Internet came along and changed all the rules. All of a sudden space was endless, no more big checks to the printers. Communications was essentially free, no more big checks to the post office. The rules changed because the option to thumb through the catalog was no longer there. Instead sophisticated search and discover techniques needed to be worked out. Jack Schmid has been in the catalog business, both print and electronic for many years. In this book he passes along dozens, if not hundreds of points. The book covers quite a lot of ground. Much of the book is on the functions that have to be performed whether the catalog is printed, electronic or both. This includs things like product selection, fullfillment, customer service and finance. There is a goodly amount of material on the printed version of the catalog, as these are still required by most companies. There are several points interspersed throughout the book and finally chapters on things like database marketing, the Internet, and more. This is one of the most all inclusive books available on catalog marketing and includes just about everything there is to know.

The ultimate handbook of catalog selling

If you want to read only one book on the catalog business, make sure you pick this one. I've read more than 5 books in English and German on the catalog subject and Schmid's book is in a class of its own. It promises to cover the entire catalog process, including strategic planning, merchandising, creative, marketing (circulation), fulfillment, testing, and measuring response and ROI. And it delivers on the promise to an extend that I've never seen before. I spend this summer in Cannes, France, and enjoyed Schmid's book in the hot sun. Just couldn't put it aside... His 11 pages long spreadsheet model in appendix includes everything for a new catalog start-up feasibility study ... and provides insight for the budgeting process to more experienced catalogers. [Why doesn't he provide a downloadable version in Excel on his homepage?] The only competitor to this book is probably Katie Muldoon's 1995-publication, which is out of print (her home page says that a new book on the strategic aspects of catalogs is forthcoming). One weakness that all books on cataloging have so far is their unserious treatment of the Internet. Schmid's book is from 2000 and it shows. It doesn't contain solid work on dynamic publishing, which is exploding via the Internet these years. It's not that Schmid doesn't accept that the Internet will be a phenomenal factor, but in this area so much of the catalog processes have been digitized since 2000. Thus, on this promise it doesn't deliver. I still recommend this book as the best source so far to understanding all the catalog processes and hints to improving the bottom-line. Peter Leerskov, MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

Comprehensive Overview

A wonderful overview of the catalog world with plenty of real-world examples including: ROI calculations, promotions, customer segmentation.....Worth its wieght in gold!

Terrific book

Great guide to the numbers behind starting and running a successful catalog-based business. What it will cost. Where you can save money, and calculating how time to profits.

That Why My Products Didn't Sell

This book is to die for. After ten years in the candle making business I had big catalog publishing companies telling me that "My product were the reason for not selling". I read this book and bingo it wasn't my products it was my prsentation of the products. Don't waste your time on big catalog publishing companies, just read this book and learn a greater insite of your products and how to sell them.