The Success of Lillian Vernons Mail Order Business :: Business

The Success of Lillian Vernons Mail Order Business It all began with black and white in 1951. Today, nearly 45 geezerhoodlater, the mail order strain of Lillian Vernon has swept the mail ordermarket and maintained a financial foothold where others could not. LillianHochberg (now known as Lillian Vernon) started her business at her Lillians motivation was to supplement her husbands then $150 dollar aweek income by working from her home. She could be homemaker and help withthe finances too. Her achievement started by using $495 dollars of wedding giftmoney to place a mail order ad in Seventeen magazine selling an loud leather bash 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 roast camein black, tan, or red and sold for $7 dollars.(Youman, N, 1989, pg 26) After 6 weeks of advertising Lillian had ask overd over $16 thousand dollarsin mail or ders. Her belt and purse were such a hit, she like a shotincreased 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 get together their mothers business and quickly rose up through themanagement ranks. With their help, her -little business+ went public in1987 on the American Stock Exchange. Since the Lillian Vernon Corporationwent public, it has overcome the requisite but near fatal traumas thatface every entrepreneurial enterprise. In this case, inadequate computingcapacity and inefficient warehome the customer places the order to the timethey receive the merchandise in the mail. Lillian Vernon has not relied ondemographics to sell her products to the public. Instead, her secret tosuccess lies in womens intuition. The lean seat-of-the-pants operation sheprefers makes her company tremendously agile. For example, in 1985, Lillianspied the cacooning trend and immediately put a fur niture specialty catalogtogether. She got the trend right but the bulky orders overwhelmed thecompanys fulfillment capability. (Youman, N. 1989, pg 26). In 1993, when Sears announced that after many years it will ceasepublication 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 LillianVernon Corporation. reviewed their catalog databases to light out customerswho had not ordered in quite some time. During their review, they foundthat many of the active customers were buying presents for children and