Advanta has released a new Platinum Business Card for Online Marketers, offering cash back rewards for a variety of Web-focused activities.
The card caters directly to bloggers, online marketers, Web site operators, etc. by offering 5% cash back on the first $1200 spent in “bonus categories,” said categories being: online PPC advertising, eBay fees, Web site hosting, shipping, USPS, computers and office supplies, cellular services and gas. Other purchases can earn 1% cash back. Cardholders can also choose to receive travel rewards, if cash isn’t really their thing.
I’m curious to see how Advanta will market the card. Will they take the traditional credit card route and send out a direct mail campaign, or, since they are looking for online-savvy customers, will they stick to a Web-based campaign?

While the US consumer watches gas prices rise, there may be a positive spin for the cataloger and other direct marketers who save consumers a shopping trip. Bloomberg reports that petroleum gasoline futures are at  $3.40 per gallon today and I’ve seen several reports that gas averages $4 a gallon at the pump.

Here’s some math: The average American commuter driving a sedan at 20 miles per gallon would use 1.36 gallons per 1-hour round trip to the mall.  At $4.00 per gallon, that’s a $5.44 savings. If you’re company’s shipping fees are lower than that, you’ve got some feel good savings to pass on to the customer.

But before you start rewriting all of your promotional copy, consider the true nature of costs and benefits. The carbon offsets and increased prices for delivery of products to individual homes will still have an environmental impact. In addition, according to a recent study by Connected Nation, it takes 50 orders that save the consumer an hour of driving, to make 1 cent of carbon offsets for each individual. Thanks to multiplication, this can eventually total to dollars of change.

The retail industry’s woes are getting hard not to notice. DMNews reported on Monday about the financial industry’s growing lack of confidence in catalog and multichannel retail operations, forcing some, like BlueSky Brands, to close while others, such as Red Envelope, recently warned that they may have to cease operations. Yesterday, the New York Times had its own report about the growing wave of bankruptcies among retailers, pointing out that while the trend may have started with smaller retail companies like Sharper Image, which recently filed for Chap. 11 bankruptcy protection, it is quickly spreading to larger, national chains such as Linens & Things. Like our story, the NYT report also points to the banks’ contributing role in these bankruptcy filings.
In the Linens & Things example, however, the financiers appears to be willing to work with the retail chain for now. Linens & Things said yesterday that it has delayed a $16.1 million interest payment while it discusses a capital restructuring with creditors that could help it avoid bankruptcy. The retail chain also said its lenders have agreed to delay exercising their right to stop making loans to the company. Linens & Things has blamed the combined effects of the credit crunch, the housing downturn and the slowdown in consumer spending for its financial woes.
What do you think will determine which multichannel merchants will survive this current environment and which ones won’t?

The retail industry’s woes are getting hard not to notice. DMNews reported on Monday about the financial industry’s growing lack of confidence in catalog and multichannel retail operations, forcing some, like BlueSky Brands, to close while others, such as Red Envelope, recently warned that they may have to cease operations. Today, the New York Times had its own report about the growing wave of bankruptcies among retailers, pointing out that while the trend may have started with smaller retail companies like Sharper Image, which recently filed for Chap. 11 bankruptcy protection, it is quickly spreading to larger, national chains such as Linens & Things. Like our story, the NYT report also points to the banks’ contributing role in these bankruptcy filings. In the Linens & Things example, however, the financiers appears to be willing to work with the retail chain for now. Linens & Things said today that it has delayed a $16.1 million interest payment while it discusses a capital restructuring with creditors that could help it avoid bankruptcy. The retail chain also said its lenders have agreed to delay exercising their right to stop making loans to the company. Linens & Things has blamed the combined effects of the credit crunch, the housing downturn and the slowdown in consumer spending for its financial woes.

What do you think will determine which multichannel merchants will survive this current environment and which ones won’t?

1-800-FLOWERS.COM Inc. said today that it will be launching a partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. in April for an exclusive co-branded floral, plant and gift program called Martha Stewart for 1-800-Flowers.com.

“This partnership will leverage the best of both brands - lifestyle icon Martha Stewart’s unparalleled design talent with our company’s relationships with our millions of customers and our unique same-day, any-day distribution capabilities,” said Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, in a statement.

The news was part of the company’s second quarter financial results release, which indicated that 1-800-FLOWERS.COM’s revenues increased 1.3% during the fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 30 for a total of $329.9 million.

During the second quarter, the company attracted approximately 1.3 million new customers, of whom 67%, or more than 845,000, came to the company through is online channels. Approximately 2.8 million customers placed orders during the quarter, of which 54.4 percent were repeat customers.

–Chantal Todé

J. Crew Group Inc. just announced that its president, Jeffrey Pfeifle, will leave the company on Feb. 1.

Pfeifle’s responsibilities will be assumed by members of the executive team with no near term plan to fill his position.

“Jeff and I have had a successful collaboration for more than 15 years, with the last five at J. Crew,” said Millard Drexler, chairman and CEO of J. Crew, in a statement. Pfeifle “has made significant contributions to our business.”

–Chantal Todé

It just occurred to me that a radical shift in the music retail model has deprived me of one of the biggest holiday thrills I used to experience: The anticipation of who would be the Christmas number one in the charts.

Yes, I’m showing my age; I’m from an era when people bought singles, on vinyl, for about 75p in my hometown, London. This story from the BBC makes a decent attempt at stirring up a bit of excitement, but much of that was caused by last week’s controversial censoring of a word in the Pogues’ classic Fairytale of New York on BBC radio stations and the subsequent U-turn on that decision).

Most music charts now factor in downloads – it’d be daft not to. How many people now actually go to a record shop (do they even still exist?) clutching a greasy bill in excitement to buy the long-awaited tune from their latest passion? And the download model for music works well in that it makes purchase so much easier. But because of that, songs are less likely to stay at number one for more than a week; in fact, the concept of being at number one is so outdated and irrelevant in today’s multichannel music world that I find it hard to believe many music fans will even know what’s top of the pops during any given week.

Complex algorithms on download sites recommending new bands to people who’ve just downloaded a song undoubtedly expand musical tastes; it’s worked for me in the past. The thrill of discovering new sounds is still there, and social networking has brought the excitement (and bragging about early discoveries) into a new sphere which is arguably larger than the traditional groups of friends in “real life.” And the record companies are having to step up their game to prove their value and pick the right pricing model (or the bands will do it for them, such as Radiohead did).

But just for this day, five days before Christmas, just let me mourn for a moment the fact that I won’t wake up on Sunday, atwitter with excitement as to who will be number one. I probably wouldn’t have heard of the song anyway.

As someone who is still scrambling to finish her holiday shopping and will be pleased to manage a New Years day deadline for dropping greeting cards in the mail, Restaurant.com’s most recent push caught my eye. In an event they are calling “National Freedom from Shipping Week” the online coupon provider has given me and my fellow procrastinators one more tool in our gift-giving arsenal. Beginning tomorrow and running until Dec. 25, the site is reminding consumers that its variety of gift certificates from more than 8,500 restaurants nationwide requires only a printer or can be passed along by e-mail directly to the recipient.  This “no shipping necessary” gift trumps all other widely publicized last-minute holiday shipping dates. This campaign, which merely provides new context for Resturant.com’s basic offering, strikes me as marketing at its finest: giving a specific target audience (i.e. gift-givers with no time and money to spend) a reason to visit the site.

 - Cara Wood 

British indie prog band Radiohead is giving a little back to their fans by letting them choose the price they’d like to pay to download their new album “In Rainbows.” The band finished their contract with record label EMI with their last album “Hail to the Thief,” and are releasing the new album themselves through their Web site www.radiohead.com.

While Radiohead may be giving up profits from online sales, with this donation process (seemingly fans would choose to download the album for free), the band is selling a discbox, which contains a CD, two vinyl records, digital music files, album art and lyrics booklets for 40 pounds, which will appeal to the avid fan and collector.

This is a very smart way for the band to market themselves direct to the consumer through their Web site and existing reputation, despite not being available in record stores or on iTunes. In addition, as the band will be profiting directly from all sales, they stand to earn more than they have in the past, as major labels and retailers tend to make most of the profits from music sales (according to a Brian Eno book in the 90s, bands make less than 10 percent of sales). The fans will feel closer to the band and the band will be able to harness this relationship with direct sales.

-Dianna Dilworth