One-Stop E-commerce: GiftCatalog.com
By combining the online channels of Wireless, Seasons and Signals catalogs, Target Corp. serves up a streamlined shopping experience
December 2001 By Allison Eckel
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Type the word “Gift” into any Internet search engine, and you’ll be faced with more sites than you know what to do with.
From Gift.com to SendAGift.com, online gift retailing has become a hot-button business. With such a crowded field, why would the executives of retail giant Target Corp. decide that three of its strongest print catalog brands—Wireless, Signals and Seasons—would do better under one URL, GiftCatalog.com?
The answer lies in the shopping experience. Market researchers told Target’s online division, target.direct, that potential for cross-selling among the three catalogs was high, but that navigating three different sites was not as easy it should be. So GiftCatalog.com was born to aggregate three separate brands into a one-stop shop.
The Core Brands
As mentioned, the brands comprising GiftCatalog.com include Wireless, Signals and Seasons. The three catalogs were launched by Rivertown Trading Co., a direct marketing start-up that later joined with Target. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start in 1982.
“The Prairie Home Companion” by Garrison Keilor was the most successful radio show produced by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). Officials at the non-profit member station of National Public Radio decided to sell a T-shirt based on the show and broadcast a phone number to order it. The shirt sold out quickly and gave the station a new mailing list to which to target mail order offers.
Linda Bauer, controller for target.direct, says, “In the 1980s, mail order was really much easier than it is today, and we were in a list-growing mode.”
The runaway success of the direct mail efforts led to a full-blown catalog. Featuring product tie-ins to radio shows on MPR, the catalog was called Wireless. By 1987, the success of merchandising and the Wireless catalog endangered MPR’s non-profit status, so catalog operations were spun off to become Rivertown Trading Co.
In terms of sales and profits, the gambit of a new catalog worked. So Rivertown executives began branching out, seeking new business opportunities. They set their sights on a second title, and this time looked to television. Together with TV station WGBH in Boston, Rivertown launched Signals, which features products related to popular public TV shows. Later, a third title, Seasons, was established to offer a broader assortment of gifts and products targeted primarily at women.
With three growing brands in its portfolio, Rivertown then increased its mailing frequency by sending supplemental catalogs, such as the video section from Signals.
From Gift.com to SendAGift.com, online gift retailing has become a hot-button business. With such a crowded field, why would the executives of retail giant Target Corp. decide that three of its strongest print catalog brands—Wireless, Signals and Seasons—would do better under one URL, GiftCatalog.com?
The answer lies in the shopping experience. Market researchers told Target’s online division, target.direct, that potential for cross-selling among the three catalogs was high, but that navigating three different sites was not as easy it should be. So GiftCatalog.com was born to aggregate three separate brands into a one-stop shop.
The Core Brands
As mentioned, the brands comprising GiftCatalog.com include Wireless, Signals and Seasons. The three catalogs were launched by Rivertown Trading Co., a direct marketing start-up that later joined with Target. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start in 1982.
“The Prairie Home Companion” by Garrison Keilor was the most successful radio show produced by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). Officials at the non-profit member station of National Public Radio decided to sell a T-shirt based on the show and broadcast a phone number to order it. The shirt sold out quickly and gave the station a new mailing list to which to target mail order offers.
Linda Bauer, controller for target.direct, says, “In the 1980s, mail order was really much easier than it is today, and we were in a list-growing mode.”
The runaway success of the direct mail efforts led to a full-blown catalog. Featuring product tie-ins to radio shows on MPR, the catalog was called Wireless. By 1987, the success of merchandising and the Wireless catalog endangered MPR’s non-profit status, so catalog operations were spun off to become Rivertown Trading Co.
In terms of sales and profits, the gambit of a new catalog worked. So Rivertown executives began branching out, seeking new business opportunities. They set their sights on a second title, and this time looked to television. Together with TV station WGBH in Boston, Rivertown launched Signals, which features products related to popular public TV shows. Later, a third title, Seasons, was established to offer a broader assortment of gifts and products targeted primarily at women.
With three growing brands in its portfolio, Rivertown then increased its mailing frequency by sending supplemental catalogs, such as the video section from Signals.
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