What we learnt from 188 pre-Mother’s Day emails

As our UK readers are well aware, this past Sunday was Mother’s Day —a major event in the gift-giving calendar. You’d assume, as I did, that most of the email newsletters landing in my inbox in the days prior would have a special Mother’s Day offer—at the very least a cursory note not to forget 14th March. So it came as quite a revelation that out of a total of 188 promotional emails from cataloguers and online retailers received between 3rd March and 11th March*, 112 emails, or 59.6 percent of them, did not reference Mother’s Day at all.

As expected, business-to-business merchants didn’t promote Mother’s Day. I received emails from Slingsby, Machine Mart, Filplastic, and Teknomek that understandably did not factor Mother’s Day into their promotions. Out of those emails, my favourite was Teknomek, which used the opportunity to let recipients know of its presence at an upcoming trade show.

British mums must not be very sporty if the emails I received are anything to go by. Two golf-equipment retailers, County Golf and Direct Golf, sent out enewsletters during that (extended) week and neither suggested buying mum a new set of clubs for Mother’s Day. Derby House, a cataloguer that specialises in equine-related equipment and accessories, sent us at least four emails during the period and none gave us a mother-related special offer. Further, snow and surf brands Ellis Brigham, Extremepie, and Blue Tomato were just too cool to promote mums.

Also surprising was that quite a few apparel brands decided not to send out Mother’s Day-related offers. Kaleidoscope, Joe Browns, and Plumo were among those that didn’t mention Mother’s Day in any of their emails. The “worst offenders” in this category, however, were Wall London and Wallis. Wall sent three emails during that week and Wallis sent five—none promoted Mothering Sunday. This was made even worse by Wallis’s inclusion of a competition that would have been a perfect Mother’s Day hook. It was offering a two-night Champneys Spa break for the recipient and a friend. Why it did not add “or take your mum!” to the offer is beyond me.

Many of the retailers sent us more than one email during that week. This gave them scope to send one email with a Mother’s Day offer, and one without. Of those that sent us multiple messages, Roman Originals targeted the more organised of shoppers. It sent out an email on the 4th March with an offer for Mother’s Day; five days later, the offer was removed from the email. The same tactic was used by Baker Ross, Past Times, and John Lewis. Curiously, lingerie etailer Figleaves approached it the other way round. Its emails sent prior to 9th March were Mother’s Day-free zones. However, come the 9th, Figleaves’ subject line was: New spring arrivals, 20% off lingerie offer + 20% off nightwear - perfect for Mother's Day! Neom Organics also made a point of targeting last-minute shoppers on 9th March with the subject line: FREE Gift & Mother's Day Special Offers.

What did we learn from 188 pre-Mother's Day emails? That the majority of retailers aren't concerned with Mother's Day at all. So what were they promoting if not Mother’s Day? Seven percent promoted spring—or new arrivals for spring—whilst just two percent promoted Easter. Most of the offers focused either on specific ranges, promoting existing sales, or pushing product.

Of the 112 emails that didn’t promote Mother’s Day my favourites were:

Boden
Sent on 4th March with the subject line “Today's your last chance for 15% off at Boden, online. Shop now or miss out‏”, Boden’s email appeals to my cute receptors. It sent a similar email six months ago, I liked that one too!

Hotel Chocolat
Although the email has a tab labelled Mother’s Day, it didn’t directly promote Mother’s Day offers. What it did promote were Easter eggs—and lots of them. The email has an almost irresistible selection of chocolate eggs (irresistible because I cannot justify spending £22 on one Easter egg). Despite the amount of product featured in this email, it’s not confusing and doesn’t seem crowded. Hotel Chocolat called it its “Easter Eggs-ibition”, and it certainly seems to have a gallery feel to it. I particularly like the graphic at the bottom which compares the egg sizes to one another—a little “happy” egg right through to a giant chocolaty “Ostrich” egg.

Oli
This gets top marks for concept rather than execution. Received on 10th March—three days after the Academy Awards ceremony—the email from fashion etailer Oli is titled “The Oli Awards are here‏”. The categories are Best red-carpet dress, Hottest heels, and Must have accessory. There are three nominees and a winner. I like the idea—but the follow-through is lacklustre. Why did that green dress, or those platform shoes, win? Are they the most popular with customers? What makes them better than the other pieces in the list? The pieces were chosen by Oli staff, but there’s no reason behind their choices. What I’d liked to see is a pre-Oscars competition where Oli customers vote on their favourite pieces. The winner gets her favourite item and the reason for loving it into the email. Maybe next year?--MT

* Why did I choose the 3rd to 11th March? For a start, I factored in delivery dates; the 11th fell on a Thursday which still enabled delivery by Saturday. The 3rd was chosen to allow for emails with an early-bird offer to be included.

February Catalogue Log

The shortest month of the year held no surprises in terms of catalogue volume. We received and logged 89 catalogues, a decrease of 32 percent on January’s 131 catalogues. After the January high, it wasn’t the only decline we recorded; in February we noted that 34 catalogues, or 38.2 percent, offered a sale or discount compared with 57 catalogues that did so last month.

The percentage of catalogues offering a free gift was also down—from 17.6 percent in January to 16.9 percent in February, whilst free delivery was only marginally less popular—21.3 percent of covers promoted it, down from 21.4 percent.

What did surprise us about February’s stack of catalogues, however, was that none promoted Valentine’s Day on the cover. Considering that Brits spend at least £40 on Valentine’s cards and gifts (according to a recent survey we’ve come across) it seems a missed opportunity. And for those of you who think email is a more suitable medium for targeted Valentine’s messages, we were underwhelmed with those offers too.

Another big event in the gifts calendar overlooked by February’s catalogues is Mothering Sunday, which falls on 14th March this year. We received very few catalogues promoting Mother’s Day, despite our inbox buckling under the virtual weight of “treat your mum this Mother’s Day” emails. Of the catalogues that did mention Mother’s Day on the cover, Hotel Chocolat got the thumbs up for dedicating the edition to “our multi-tasking heroines”.

Past Times was another to celebrate Mother’s Day, but it wasn’t immediately obvious from the cover. It gave Mother’s Day the opening spread and promoted half-price trinkets and tapestries. We don’t know why Mother’s Day promotions are more popular via email than in print, perhaps you could tell us?

Finally in the spring shopping calendar comes Easter—and here cataloguers didn’t skimp, despite mailing at least six weeks ahead of the holiday weekend. Both Lakeland and JML featured promotions relating to tasty Easter treats; even b-to-b cataloguer Viking Direct got in on the action with its Easter-themed “Cracking products, service and value!” cover line.

Overall, the percentage of catalogues offering any sort of promotion was down from last month. Whereas less than a third of the catalogues we received in January made no mention of special offers on their covers, the figure rose to 37 percent, or 33 of all catalogues logged in February. With more new-season catalogues expected in March, we’re predicting fewer sales and discounts, but this might be offset with more free-delivery offers to encourage customers to pay full-price.--MT

The September Catalogue Log

In last month’s Catalogue Log, we were wondering why we’d received a scant 71 catalogues in August. No matter: Volume picked up in September, with a vengeance. We tallied 212 catalogues in September, the most in one month so far this year. To put it in context, in May, the month with the second greatest volume, we'd received 155 catalogues. Or, for more context, of the 1,081 catalogues logged during the first nine months of 2009, nearly one-fifth were received in September.

While the number of catalogues received had nearly tripled from the previous month, the percentage promoting sales and discounts dropped appreciably, from 43.7 percent in August to 34.4 percent in September. That’s somewhat higher than July’s 30.9 percent but nearly on a par with June’s 34.1 percent.

The percentage of the September catalogues offering free delivery was 18.4 percent, up from August’s 16.9 percent. It’s also the second highest rate so far this year. Top honours go to April, in which a full 20 percent of the books received had some sort of free P&P offer. Several of the September delivery offers were pegged to deadlines. Fashion brand Joe Browns, for instance, promised free P&P only on orders received by 18th September; fellow apparel brand White Stuff extended its offer till 15th October; yet another fashion brand, Fat Face, offered free delivery but only till 30th September and only on web orders.

The percentage of catalogues offering a gift with purchase was a fairly modest 10.8 percent in September. That’s down from August’s 14.1 percent and the high, in June, of 17.8 percent. Among September’s gifts-with-purchase were a £20 cosmetics kit with orders of £25 or more from BuyCosmetics.com; £12.50 worth of chocolates with each order of £50 or more from the Hotel Chocolat Corporate Christmas Gifts catalogue; and from apparel cataloguer Boden, a Jewelled Pebble Necklace worth £39 for new customers.

The Boden offer appeared in the mini-catalogue inserted in an issue of the Sunday Times; the catalogue cover also offered a 15-percent discount, free delivery, and free returns. Far be it for me to question the wisdom of Johnnie Boden et al, but one could argue that the plethora of promotions makes the brand seem a bit… needy. Yes, annual turnover rose 9.4 percent last year, to £168.1 million, so the company is undoubtedly doing many things right. Then again, pretax profit fell 9.5 percent, to £24.8 million, and while some of this was due to expanding its US facilities, could Boden be overspending on some of its customer acquisition?

Enough speculation; let’s get back to cold, hard percentages. Among the September catalogues, 42.5 percent promised no special offers at all. That’s a significant increase from 31.0 percent in August, though down slightly from 43.6 percent in July. As we get closer to Christmas, it might be interesting to wager how low the percentage of promotion-free catalogues will fall before the end of the year. My money’s on 20 percent: I predict that by December, four out of five catalogues will be touting some sort of discount, freebie, or other promotion. Your predictions?--SC

Compare and contrast: Hotel Chocolat

Why is Hotel Chocolat the subject of this month’s “Compare and contrast”, in which I look at the UK and US versions of a particular merchant? Well, I could say it’s because Halloween takes place in October, and you can’t have Halloween without sweets. I could also say it’s because Royston, Hertfordshire-based Hotel Chocolat launched its first US store, in Boston, last month, two years after entering the market via the web.

But I’d be lying. The real reason is that I figured, if I’m going to be staring at web pages, those pages might as well offer something lovely to look at—something like chocolates.


Neither Hotel Chocolat site disappoints in this regard. On the home page of the UK version (above) a good-size image of a chocolate skull and gravestones accompanies the headline “Boo!” and copy challenging you to “discover our hair-raising Halloween chocolates if you dare...” followed by a link to a page of Halloween sweets. The company makes sure to emphasise its unique branding proposition—that the chocs its sells aren’t your run-of-the-mill goodies but are instead top-of-the-line—with the headline “Luxury Chocolate Gifts” directly below the Halloween image and, to the right, a list of the site’s top five best-selling “luxury gifts for him & her...”.

Having determined, no doubt correctly, that Americans are less familiar with its brand, Hotel Chocolat uses the home page of its US site (above) primarily as a branding vehicle. Rotating images emphasising the decadence of its chocolates (a woman in evening attire feeding a blind-folded man sat at a grand piano a bonbon) and their premium quality (a close-up of a cocoa bean, simply propped shots of its chocolates against a dark background) take up most of the screen, selling Hotel Chocolat rather than the individual chocolates. Below the slide show are links to “our finest Champagne Truffles”, information about the company’s cocoa plantation, an introduction to the company (“A state of mind, a place, a feeling... Why Hotel Chocolat?”), and the email sign-up.

Another reason Hotel Chocolat plays up the gourmand extravagance of the brand in the US may have to do with its pricing. A box of 16 Champaign Truffles on the UK site costs £15 ($23.83); on the US site, $36 (£22.64). The Halloween Pick-Me-Up Gift Bag (which is seriously adorable, by the way) is £10 ($15.89) on the UK site—not cheap, but accessible enough that I may buy one for my daughter. On the US site it costs $25 (£15.73), which means if we were still living in the States, my daughter would definitely be making do with some Hershey kisses.

Then there’s the shipping. Next-day shipping is available on both sites, though only the UK version promotes it on the home page. Perhaps that’s because figuring out shipping costs on the US site is overall a bit of a trial. The UK site offers two tiers of shipping rates (for one item and for multiple items) for standard and “gold” (next-day) delivery within the country as well as flat rates for standard delivery to the rest of Europe and other parts of the world except the US. If you’re on the UK site and want to send an order to the States, you need to click the link to the US site.

Fair enough. But not only does the US site not offer any sort of flat rate, it doesn’t even show you the delivery cost until you’re about to pay for your order. And shipping isn’t cheap. It doesn’t help that Hotel Chocolat fulfils its Stateside orders from Massachusetts, far up north on the East Coast. Even so, delivery of a $16 (£10.06), 3.53-oz box of Caramel Canapes to New Rochelle, NY, just outside Manhattan and no more than 300 miles away from the fulfilment centre, would cost $7.53 (£4.74)—and that’s without the $7 (£.4.40) insulated packaging, which is “strongly” recommended if temperatures at the delivery destination are above 70F (21C). Shipping to Arizona, say, or southern California would be prohibitive. Those Caramel Canapes had better be damn good.

In comparison, another upscale chocolatier, Godiva, charges $6.95 (£4.37) for shipping of orders under $18 (£11.32), regardless of destination. And it does not charge extra for “climate-controlled packaging”.

Hotel Chocolat's UK and the US sites both underscore the brand's expertise in all things chocolate, with links on the home pages to glossaries and recipes. And both aim to simplify gift selection: The US site enables you to browse by occasion, product, and person; the UK version adds another option, attributes, to the list.

The browse function is not only more thorough but also sleeker on the UK site, however. When browsing by occasion, for example, a drop-down menu offers a list of 10 choices, including “dinner party” and “self-indulgence”. The menu on the US site is much clunkier and, oddly, more downmarket in appearance, and it offers just five choices. Apparently in the UK “autumn” is occasion enough to indulge in chocolates, but not in the US. Then again, given how much more costly the products are in the States, it's much tougher for Yanks to justify dropping that much dosh merely to celebrate the falling of the leaves.--SC