Hanover Direct Inc., Weehawken, NJ, yesterday reported increased revenues because of improved results in catalog and telemarketing.
First-quarter revenues for the company increased 2.6 percent to $127.7 million, compared with $124.5 million for the same period last year. Revenues from the company’s continuing operations increased $9 million or 8.1 percent from the same period last year.
Rakesh K. Kaul, president/CEO of Hanover Direct, noted the company’s continuing brands activity ran on plan with strong operating performance and improved catalog and telemarketing productivity. He also said the company’s Silhouettes, The Company Store, Gump's and Improvements brands had exceeded prior year first-quarter results while the Domestications continued to show significant response rate improvement, posting positive sales results as well.
“Through the successful migration of our catalog shoppers to our branded web sites as well as through a series of successful online alliances, Internet demand topped $4.7 million for the quarter versus $.7 million during the first quarter of 1998 with full-year 1998 at $8.3 million.” Kaul also said that each of the company’s branded sites “has now been migrated to our own internal service platform, which is enabling us to quickly deliver state-of-the-art usage enhancements to our growing customer database. Our captive Internet e-mail customer address file is now in excess of 500,000.”
Hanover Direct also reported satisfactory performance by its recently launched discount shopping club, The Shoppers Edge, which Kaul said has initially been offered to customers through a telemarketing initiative. Hanover Direct Inc. offers branded merchandise through catalogs and e-commerce platforms to consumers, as well as a comprehensive range of Internet, e-commerce and fulfillment services to businesses. The brand marketing division includes Domestications, The Company Store, Colonial Garden Kitchens, Kitchen & Home, Improvements, The Safety Zone, Silhouettes, Tweeds, International Male, Austad's, Undergear, and Gump's By Mail. The Company also owns Gump's, a retail store based in San Francisco.
