Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260251
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
MAIL-ORDER HEALTHY NEARLY EVERYWHERE
While Sears, Roebuck plans to close the book on its catalog business, other mail order companies are enjoying fat increases in their own specialized markets.Other mail-order houses say their industry is fine and they had a very healthy fourth quarter as usual, said Lisa Hahn, a spokeswoman for the Direct Marketing Association, a trade organization in New York.
Statistics show that mail-order shopping is growing, not diminishing, Hahn said. "They're always trying to reach new customers and non-buyers," she added.
In 1992, Hahn said, 101.6 million people, or 55 percent of the U.S. adult population, shopped by mail. The figure has risen each year except 1991, when a postal increase may have held down catalog sales.
In Roanoke, John Moticha, operations vice president for the Orvis Co., said sales of the company's fishing gear and other outdoor equipment and clothing boosted its Christmas sales by "at least 30 percent." So far, 1993 is running well ahead of forecasts, he said.
The DM News, a trade newspaper, reported an excellent Christmas season, "surprisingly better than most of us expected," Moticha said.
The catalog industry has gotten down to niches, he said, and smaller catalogs list products aimed at a certain segment of the population expected to buy.
Sears, on the other hand, mails a huge catalog, a big investment for the company.
The closing of the $4 billion Sears catalog operation and layoff of 54,000 workers is "a business tragedy which didn't have to happen," said Maxwell Sroge, a Chicago consultant.
The growth of catalogs has been largely based on development of specialty merchandise for special interests, he said, while Sears went on continuing to distribute "millions of dull-looking, big fat books" and other companies "were outmarketing them with stylish, targeted specialty catalogs."
James Brown, a Virginia Tech retailing professor, said Sears can't seem to get its retail stores right - "they don't appeal to the upscale or the bargain" customers. Brown said Sears should emphasize mail order.
In contrast to Sears' experience, J.C. Penney Co. said Monday that its catalog business is healthy.
Spokesman Duncan Muir said Penney's only "soft period" was in 1990-1991 when sales were down because housing starts were down. About 40 percent of Penney's catalog merchandise is related to the home.
"We're jumping to first place faster than we thought we were," said Muir.
The announcement that puts Penney's in first, however, will leave vacant property in many areas.
Because Sears will be leaving an established telecatalog center, Brown suggested that another mail-order company may locate there, using the trained labor market.
Virgil Thompson of the Virginia Employment Commission's job service in Roanoke said many of the part-time Sears employees have other jobs, "so they're not as seriously impacted as those at Dominion Bank."
Elizabeth Doughty, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, said
Sears' telecatalog operation "filled a niche. They didn't have any trouble finding people."