To most shoppers, a catalog is a bottomless well of size 13 boots and periwinkle cardigans. Everything between the covers is available across a telephone line.

        To those who shop the Frontgate housewares catalogs, the well is filled with $5,000 gas grills and $79 mouthwash dispensers. Frontgate shoppers know what they want — it is right there in color on the page — and they expect it to arrive on the day promised.

        “If you walk into a store and you don't see it, you're not going to buy it,” said Daniel Lally, director of public relations for West Chester-based Frontgate. “But we're mailing out catalogs.”

Daniel Lally, public relations director for Frontgate, sits in the company's new West Chester store. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        And therein lies the double challenge for the upscale cataloger: to have the items in stock and be able to ship them on time.

        The holidays season is not the only busy time of year for Frontgate — so are late winter and summer — but the projected peak week this year is the week of Dec. 4. And Christmas is the only rush season with an absolute deadline.

        Frontgate, like many catalogers, pledges some items can arrive by Dec. 25 if ordered by a specific date — this year, it's 3 p.m., Dec. 22.

        “For 90 percent of our customers, the deadline is the same day,” Mr. Lally said. “The real challenge is that they are not surprised.”

        For good reason. Frontgate's customers — busy homeowners who treat themselves to $300 shower heads — are a demanding group, and costly to replace.

        William Dean, publisher of the catalog newsletter the Dean Report, estimates a cataloger spends $7 to $8 to retain a customer, versus $12 to $15 to attract a new one.

        “They know that it's less expensive than getting a brand new customer,” he said.

        At Frontgate, the holiday ramp-up begins July 5. Roughly 500 full-time (equivalent) workers pick tens of thousands of ordered items daily, inspect them, repack them and wrap them.

        Frontgate examines yearslong purchase trends and patterns. It knows the placement of a product in the catalog can influence the number ordered.

        Catalog sales are expected to rise to $110.6 billion in 2000 from $96.8 billion in 1999, said Amy Blankenship, director/Shop at Home Information Center at the Direct Marketing Association.

        In the end, Mr. Lally said, it's important to keep customer service workers sharp — the individual. A theater-style popcorn popper can't be shipped to an island in two days.

        “You ought to see us the week before Christmas,” he said. “They're firing on all eight cylinders at the distribution center. They know about every order going through at that time is important to somebody.”

It's crunch time for merchants, shoppers
Holiday shoppers expected to spend slightly less
The specialty shop
The catalog store
The Internet company