The Success of Lillian Vernons Mail Order Business :: Business

The Success of Lillian Vernon's Mail Order Business It all began with black and white in 1951. Today, nearly 45 years later, the mail order business of Lillian Vernon has swept the mail order market and maintained a financial foothold where others could not. Lillian Hochberg (now known as Lillian Vernon) started her business at her Lillian's motivation was to supplement her husband's then $150 dollar a week income by working from her home. She could be homemaker and help with the finances too. Her success started by using $495 dollars of wedding gift money to place a mail order ad in Seventeen magazine selling an inexpensive leather belt with matching purse that she herself had designed. As a hook, she offered to moaker in the Chelsea district of New York, manufactured the two items for around $3 dollars. The purse and belt came in black, tan, or red and sold for $7 dollars.(Youman, N, 1989, pg 26) After 6 weeks of advertising Lillian had received over $16 thousand dollars in mail orders. Her belt and purse were such a hit, she immediately increased her inventory to inexpensive jewelry and make-up paraphernalia. Over the past 45 years, Lillian has had two sons, Fred and David Hochberg, both of whom joined their mother's business and quickly rose up through the management ranks. With their help, her -little business+ went public in 1987 on the American Stock Exchange. Since the Lillian Vernon Corporation went public, it has overcome the unavoidable but near fatal traumas that face every entrepreneurial enterprise. In this case, inadequate computing capacity and inefficient warehome the customer places the order to the time they receive the merchandise in the mail. Lillian Vernon has not relied on demographics to sell her products to the public. Instead, her secret to success lies in womens intuition. The lean seat-of-the-pants operation she prefers makes her company tremendously agile. For example, in 1985, Lillian spied the cacooning trend and immediately put a furniture specialty catalog together. She got the trend right but the bulky orders overwhelmed the company's fulfillment capability. (Youman, N. 1989, pg 26). In 1993, when Sears announced that after many years it will cease publication of its giant catalog, known as the -wish-book,+ a very long ch During the time when the mail order giants were cutting back, the Lillian Vernon Corporation. reviewed their catalog databases to clear out customers who had not ordered in quite some time. During their review, they found that many of the active customers were buying presents for children and