Here’s what the e-mail said:

“There are still many opportunities to receive great wildlife and nature-themed merchandise when you support National Wildlife Federation!

Previously the National Wildlife Federation’s name and logo was licensed to National Wildlife Direct, a separate, unrelated company that offered nature-themed products and gifts. Unfortunately, National Wildlife Direct recently closed its doors and is no longer in operation.

However, we know how much you love helping wildlife and our environment while you shop. Watch your email in-box to find out about new offers coming directly from the National Wildlife Federation such as:

• Carry-all Bags: Handy totes, field bags, backpacks and more
• Outdoor Gear: Umbrellas, windbreakers, fleece jackets, beach towels and blankets
• Animal Adoption Gifts: A special Wildlife Adoption Center with many items to choose from. Receive an adorable plush with each symbolic adoption
• Products just for Bird Lovers: Unique bird feeders, bird-watching kits and binoculars
• Gardening Gifts: Gardening totes, how-to books and tools
• Educational Gifts for your Favorite Children: Magazines that help connect children with nature
• And more!
And the best part is, your gifts directly fund the vital conservation programs of National Wildlife Federation.

We appreciate your love of wildlife, the environment and outdoors.”

As you can see, NWF mentions that BlueSky Brands had licensed their name and is no longer in business. Here is the scoop that I got from the head of Customer Service at NWF:

The catalog, of course, is closed down indefinitely. If existing customers of the catalog/website have outstanding orders, they can call 800-822-9919 or e-mail info@nwf.org. NWF will talk them through what they need to do to resolve the situation. They will not receive the product they ordered. If they ordered via credit card, they will be told to dispute the charge through the bank or credit card company. If payment was via check, they will not receive a refund until the issue with BSB is resolved.

The products mentioned in the e-mail are already sent out to people who sign up for memberships in NWF. These products are distributed via a 3PF vendor that they have been using for some time.

We applaud NWF for stepping up to help these customers, even though it was not their actions that caused the disaster. Such a possibility is always present when you license your name and don’t have direct control over others’ actions.

Jeff Barry is marketing manager of F. Curtis Barry & Co. – we are catalog consultants working with multichannel businesses to improve warehouse operations through the assessment and implementation of warehouse management systems and careful benchmarking of strategic metrics.

San Francisco, CA, March 4, 2008: Forerunner Systems Inc. announced the general release of IFSO 4.0. IF/SO® - The Inventory Forecaster, provides inventory forecasting and stock optimization solutions to the direct commerce industry, helping catalog and e-commerce companies improve customer fulfillment, reduce backorders and optimize the liquidation of overstocked inventory.

According to statements from the Sausalito, CA based company IFSO 4.0 provides significant enhancements to the current solution and introduces the first channel specific forecasting module for ecommerce retailers.

“The web is rapidly becoming the dominant source for customer orders in a direct marketing environment. Our customers required a solution that addressed the specific needs of the online channel, while still incorporating the best practices in inventory management that have been developed by Forerunner for the catalog industry over the last 12 years.” Said David Raycroft the VP of Client Services for Forerunner Systems Inc..

The e-commerce module incorporates the dynamic nature of the web and integrates with electronic marketing and campaign management solutions to bring email and offline promotional events into the forecasting algorithms. “We believe our approach is forward thinking for the industry, capitalizing on the unique characteristics of each channel while still providing a streamlined and integrated purchasing schedule” added David Raycroft.

Forerunner Systems Inc. has been providing inventory forecasting and stock optimization solutions to the catalog and e-commerce industry since 1994. FSI customers include some of the leaders in the Direct to Consumer retail industry including Williams-Sonoma, TravelSmith and Frontgate Catalogs.

Boston, Massachusetts—August 16, 2007 — OrderMotion, Inc., the leading provider of on-demand, direct commerce solutions for small-to-medium-sized merchants announced the continuation of its popular “how-to” Webinar series that is helping merchants get their businesses ready for the upcoming holiday season.

The holiday season is an extremely important time of year for many merchants. For some merchants, the holiday period can account for up to 60% of annual sales and up to 75% of all profits. Merchants who are prepared to fully take advantage of the opportunities the holiday season brings can achieve significant competitive advantage and can position themselves for dramatic growth.
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Part one of the Webinar series took place on August 16, 2007 and focused on “Effective Email Marketing: The Dos and Don’ts that will impact your bottom line.” If you missed the first airing, you can replay it at your convenience here. The next Webinar in the series , “How to Improve Fulfillment, Customer Service and Reduce Your Costs?” will discuss how companies are handling the challenge of keeping your backend fulfillment costs from eating into your profitability during the holidays.

The Webinar will feature industry expert Curt Barry, who will share his expertise on how to get a business “Holiday Ready” by examining such vital processes such as benchmarking, fulfillment center layout and design, workflow improvement, and managing inventory. Also speaking on the webinar is VP of SitStay.com Kent Krueger, an OrderMotion customer, who will be presenting the customer point-of-view about fulfillment and customer service during the holiday rush.

During this Webinar, merchants will learn how to:

• Use benchmarking to control and improve your operation
• Reduce inbound and outbound freight costs
• Get more out of your direct labor
• Use inventory slotting and replenishment techniques to improve efficiency
• Manage inventory – your largest balance sheet asset – more profitably
• Straighten out your work flow and reduce “touching product” which increases costs

Who: Curt Barry is one of America’s leading experts in operations and fulfillment for Internet, retail and multichannel companies. Curt is president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel consultancy specializing in benchmarking, fulfillment center layout and design, workflow improvement, systems and managing inventory. From working with large fulfillment operations in the past 30 years, Curt will apply these lessons to the small and emerging company. You can find more information at their website at http://www.fcbco.com

Kent Krueger, vice president of SitStay.com. Online since 1996, SitStay.com provides high quality dog supplies to dog lovers throughout the world.

What: Get ‘Holiday Ready’: How to Improve Fulfillment, Customer Service and Reduce Your Costs?

When: Thursday August 23, 2007 at 2:00pm. – 3:00pm. EDT.

To register for the Webinar please click here.

What’s Next: Upcoming webinars will cover topics including Search Engine Marketing and Optimization, Improving Your Website for Increased Sales Conversions, Credit Card Processing and How to Manage Increased Sales Volumes.

About OrderMotion
OrderMotion is the leading provider of on-demand, direct-commerce solutions for merchants who sell directly to their customers primarily through websites, catalogs and call centers. The OrderMotion solution enables merchants to easily process customer orders for multiple brands and includes everything from order management and fulfillment to customer service, campaign management and analytics. OrderMotion has supported the growth of over 1000 brands, including Zabar’s, Wolfgang Puck, Goldspeed.com, Warrior Custom Golf, Sundance Spas, Healthy Pets, NapaStyle and more. For more information about OrderMotion, please visit http://www.ordermotion.com.

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F. Curtis Barry & Co. – we are warehouse consultants working with multichannel businesses to improve warehouse operations through the assessment and implementation of warehouse management systems and careful benchmarking of strategic metrics.

Any company choosing an e-commerce platform is faced with a bewildering number of choices. Determining which of these solutions best fits your needs is no longer as simple as having your local Internet provider develop a Web page with navigation and some type of shopping-cart functionality.

E-commerce solutions have evolved to include core functionality for navigation, shopping cart, checkout, shipping and handling, and taxes and some level of integration to an order management system (OMS), an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, or a warehouse management system (WMS). Then there are the Web 2.0 options: rich media with audio and visual tools, customer product reviews, social networking, blogs. Newer technology also provides functionality for options such as mouse-over (move the mouse over an image and the description will display without the user’s having to click on the image), drag and drop (simply drag the item to the shopping cart without leaving the current page), and one-page checkout.

Given this array of possibilities, how do you determine the best e-commerce platform for your business? Here are a few guidelines:

Read the full platform and solutions article on our website

F. Curtis Barry & Co. – we are catalog consultants working with multichannel businesses to improve warehouse operations through the assessment and implementation of warehouse management systems and careful benchmarking of strategic metrics.

1. Direct-to-customer online sales are approaching an average of 50% of total sales for multichannel merchants, but Internet customer retention rates are still significantly less than catalog retention rates, which average 50%.

2. Catalogs are an expensive vehicle for sales, and only going to become more expensive, now that the USPS rate increase has gone into effect (increases could be as much as $400K–$500K/year for a $10 million cataloger). Although it’s difficult to predict exactly the effects of the increase, you can expect decreasing catalog sizes and prospecting, while more product goes to the Internet.

3. Peak season will be even later. Here’s how much it’s changed in a decade: In 1995, peak sales week was mid-October, and holiday operations essentially shut down by the second week in December. Last year, peak sales day was December 1, and merchants were still shipping product on December 23. Technology has made the difference, and shoppers have fallen in step with the possibilities.

4. Labor. Labor. Labor. Fifty percent or more of the cost of an order is split between fulfillment center and contact center costs, and 50% of those costs go to direct labor. As many markets experience full employment, labor costs rise, to the extent that labor availability now frequently drives site selection for DCs and contact centers. And at the same time, absolute productivity is decreasing.

5. Transportation costs increase annually. Inbound transportation costs account for 2% to 4% of gross sales; outbound costs for 5% to 8% of net sales. Shippers have continued to manipulate their pricing structures, so merchants must negotiate dimensional shipping charges, fuel surcharges, home delivery charges, and more. For more information visit our Freight Rate Analysis services page.

5. IT spending is increasing, with core IT systems costing 2% to 3% of net sales. Internet-related spending accounts for up to 5% to 10% of sales for more experimental companies.

How does this list fit with your experience? We would be interested to hear—post a comment. Or if you have specific questions, call Jeff Barry at (804) 740-8743, or e-mail him at jbarry@fcbco.com.

F. Curtis Barry & Co., an operations and fulfillment consulting firm, uses best practices to recommend and implement order management systems for multichannel businesses.

1. Internet customers expect faster delivery, and having multiple distribution points can provide improve delivery times.

2. Being closer to the customer can lead to outbound freight savings.

3. There can be advantages to processing imports in a western distribution center. The advantages can be cost or time.

4. If DCs that are close to domestic vendors can attain inbound freight savings. You can receive product from a vendor in the closest facility and redistribute it.

5. There is a tight labor market. Multiple DCs allow the splitting of labor pools.

6. Redundancy of operations can provide continuity backup in exchange for potentially duplicated overhead expense.

7. There may be local incentives available for relocation.

8. Overall inventory management will improve out of necessity due to potentially increased inventory levels.

9. As the direct-to-customer base increases, it should provide increased liquidation opportunities.

10. It is a good strategy for multichannel retailers to capitalize on the synergy of different channels and meet the expectation of customers whether direct-to-customer or retail—that is, provided multichannel retailers develop their infrastructure of facilities and systems.

A good indicator that this type of strategy is working is the measure of market penetration as a percent of sales by state for the local distribution center.

If you’re interested in more information on these and other strategic possibilities, contact Jeff Barry at jbarry@fcbco.com, or call (804) 740-8743. F. Curtis Barry & Co. works with multichannel businesses to increase catalog profitability through� the evaluation and implementation of order management systems, inventory management systems, warehouse management systems that match client objectives.

Q: We would like to achieve world-class results in our operation, but our efforts seem consistently to fall short of our expectations. Can you suggest ways that, as a manager, I could improve the level of teamwork in our operation?

A: The solution could be as simple as improving the level of managerial effectiveness. If you review the following eleven questions as honestly as possible, you may discover that you have only tapped the surface of your capability to achieve world-class results.

Read the eleven questions in our Articles & Whitepapers section on our website

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F. Curtis Barry & Co., an operations and fulfillment consulting firm, uses best practices to recommend and implement order management systems for multichannel businesses.

MotionPoint offers translation services in over 40 languages (including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Japanese, Italian). Clients include State Farm, Crutchfield, and Delta Airlines. We think this is a huge step towards being internationally correct, friendly to show proper etiquette and respect to other nations and cultures. Check it out at http://www.MotionPoint.com

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F. Curtis Barry & Co. – we are catalog consultants working with multichannel businesses to improve warehouse operations through the assessment and implementation of warehouse management systems and careful benchmarking of strategic metrics.

62% of all mailers surveyed reported April sales equal to or better than last year, and 54% reported sales equal to or better than plan for the month. 33% of all mailers had increased circulation in April 2007 vs. April 2006 and 46% kept circulation levels even with last year.

Apparel mailers reported 67% doing equal to or better than last year in April, and 50% meeting or beating plan for the month. The survey also indicated that 56% of the Apparel mailers reporting had increased circulation in April 2007 vs. the prior year.

60% of General Merchandise mailers reported doing equal to or better than last year in April, and 67% reported sales meeting or beating plan for the month. 20% of General Merchandise mailers had increased circulation in April 2007 vs. April 2006, while 53% kept circulation even with last year.

The correct answer is the PRC’s new proposal for a temporary rate decrease of the flat rate that went into effect May 14. Some catalogers are having to deal with increases of up to 40%. The PRC’s proposal would reduce Standard Mail regular flats by 3 cents, with a 2-cent reduction for Standard Regular nonprofit flats until September 29. In theory, this respite should help mailers make the transition to higher rates without requiring additional capital outlay during the interim period. (Just multiply the number of flats by 2 or 3 cents, as necessary, says the PRC.)

The proposal is now in the Board of Governors’ court. The Direct Marketing Association has registered its “disappointment,” calling the proposal nothing more than a “summer break” for mailers and a “Band-Aid.” With the DMA suggesting that this new proposal be made permanent, it seems clear that there is no chance that the flat rate increases will be reduced significantly. They’re here to stay, either at the current rate, or possibly with the 2–3-cent reduction to Sept. 29, or even beyond.

Affected mailers can send their comments—again—to the Postal Board of Governors.

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Jeff Barry is Director of Marketing of F. Curtis Barry & Co., a warehouse consulting company focusing on the entire direct fulfillment process with expertise in freight analysis.