NEMOA Members Exchange

eCommerce search solutions

Halley Silver — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:58:14 GMT

We are currently looking for a new search technology, and trying to gauge the impact it will have. I'm curious if anyone has had experience moving to a hosted search solution like Celebros, Endeca, or Visual Sciences. If so, would you mind sharing a bit about your experience, and the types of results you're seeing?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Halley Silver
King Arthur Flour

Your opinion on Free Shipping

Tom Kothman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:17:14 GMT

I recently started The Catalog Chronicles Blog, http://thecatalogchroniclesblog.com, and am measuring the impact of rising costs elements for shipping against the use of this promotion. Please share your opinion and also see the post on Catalog Choice with a juicy video that I think will surprise you. It's located at http://thecatalogchroniclesblog.com/2008/04/08/catalog-choice-honey-i-used-the-kids/

Trend in Number of Catalog buyers

Lorna Conneen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:51:06 GMT

Does anyone have any data/information that shows the trend in number of catalog buyers? industry-wide is it either shrinking or flat?

Thank you!

QVC Experience

Nancy Peterson — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:27:55 GMT

Has anyone had any experience with QVC? Could you share your experience? Pros, cons, etc. We hear it can be lucrative but also quite risky. QVC contact information would be great as well.

Thanks!

Nancy
Gorton's of Gloucester
www.gortonsfreshseafood.com

proofing process

June — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:32:23 GMT

I'd like to know how other's complete their proofing.
We have the graphics person complete the catalog then distribute an initial layout to about 10 people. All corrections go back to the catalog manager, compiled, then given back to the graphics person. (there is only one person) These corrections are made, then a corrected version is distributed and each person who receives a proof attends a final proofing meeting. The graphics person then makes all corrections before sending it to the printer.
Thanks for your input.

Proofing process

June — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:14:35 GMT

I'd like to know how other catalog companies complete their proofing.
We have the graphics person create the catalog then distribute an initial layout to about 10 people. All corrections go back to the catalog manager, compiled, then given back to the graphics person. (there is only one person) These corrections are made, then a corrected version is distributed and each person who receives a proof attends a final proofing meeting. The graphics person then makes all corrections before sending it to the printer.
Thanks for your input.

"Co-op" fees

Cal Hancock — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:55:58 GMT

A large national catalog company has just informed us we must pay a "co-op" fee for the products they chose from us to be in their catalog. It is a per-SKU fee and is seasonal, not annual. Implementation is immediate. Their rationale is that they have hired a "world-class" photography team, they are increasing circulation and adding drops, revising the layout;and updating the website. Seems to me these are what we all do on a regular basis. Has anyone heard of this type of fee?

Thanks, Cal

Outsourcing SEM

Julie Kamrowski — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:10:50 GMT

We are considering outsourcing our search engine marketing. Does anyone have any experience with evaluating SEM companies and/or could you provide names of SEM companies you have used or considered?
Thank you in advance for any information!

shipping supplies

Bruce Green — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:53:41 GMT

We are looking for a new source for our shipping supplies, primarily to utilize for standard corrugated boxes and bubble mailers. Any suggestions on a good source?

Looking for New Hosting Company

Jim Ruma — Thur, 17 Jan 2008 20:01:38 GMT

We currently use Interland / web.com for hosting our asp e-commerce site. We recently created a new site with PHP and we are looking for other hosting options. Do you have any suggestions for choosing a new hosting site? We have looked into some smaller hosting companies, but they tend not to host e-commerce sites. Our needs for hosting are pretty basic

Large amount of space for ftp files.
Hosting for PHP and other options, in case we change in the future (drupal, etc).
We want the hosting company to also allow for our current ASP files to be stored and be able to work, in case we have to return to using the older website.
Customers should not have time out problems; in relation to how long they are surfing on my site or how long they are in the shopping cart.
Ability to give access to my ftp files to a programmer or others to the ftp files, but not as an exclusive user.
I want to be notified that the server is down by the hosting company and not by my customers.
Our website should be on a designated server or shared with a small number of other clients (100 websites or less).
The shopping cart should be accessible without errors because of heavy traffic.
We need an email service of up to 25 email addresses that can be managed remotely by us on occasion as well as by the hosting company.

There are many hosting companies and we are asking around to see what has worked for others. We have posted on several forums regarding hosting, and have been told to buy an exchange server. At this time, we do not have the space or the technical support to implement an exchange server. Any suggestions, would be appreciated.

Paste ups for layout - help!

Rebecca — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:49:14 GMT

Hi - I'm sure there is a technical name for what I am looking for and I hope you guys can help me! We do our first round of layouts as pages on a set of bulletin boards. This works fairly well but its a pain to reposition the pages when you change the pagination around because you have to unpin and repin every page.

Surely there is a better way! I remember seeing metal rails used by a magazine for the same purpose where you can slide the pages in and out easily. I cannot figure out what they are called.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks!

Becky

New DNM Organizations - What to do?

Liz Pearce — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:14:56 GMT

NEMOA Members,

We, like so many Direct Marketers Im guessing, are getting email requests from two of the new consumer opt-out organizations. One is 41pounds.org (com), and the other one is Catalogchoice.org. What are you (or are your clients) doing in response to these requests?

While I dont want to mail anyone who doesnt want a catalog Im concerned that the more traction we give these sites.the more traction we give to these sites. If the public believes that this is the solution Im afraid it will snowball, on the other hand if we dont honor the requests, then how do we as a company and we as an industry look

I was hoping that you'd share how you (or your clients) are handling this issue.

Thoughts?

handling/storing credit card security codes

Mark Desrochers — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:18:19 GMT

We store encrypted credit card information as a convenience for our many multi-buyers. We have not yet stored the 3-digit security codes, but are considering doing this as a further convenience for our customers and to speed up the ordertaking process internally.

Is storing these two pieces of information, the card number and the security code, in the same database when encrypted a good idea or a dumb idea? Best practices?

Thank you.

Return Label

Bruce Green — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:43:40 GMT

Are catalog to consumer companies including a return label with all orders? If so, are you charging an amount that will be deducted from the value of the customer's return? Are you waiving this amount on exchanges?

DM Industry practices- collecting sales tax

Mark Desrochers — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:09:20 GMT

Can anyone advise who might be an authority on the issue of collecting sales taxes from customers in the various 50 states? And subsequently paying those taxes to each state?

Where are we as an Industry on this issue?

Thanks!