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How We Made the Christmas Catalogue a Success

All it took was luck, cunning, and serendipity.
By Stanley Marcus |

A Christmas catalogue of the type Neiman-Marcus originated presents an interesting case study of the search for
quality merchandise covering a wide range of prices, from $10 to $100,000, which will stimulate at least 10 percent
of the one million worldwide recipients to fill out order blanks and put them in the mail. With an ever increasing
investment in catalogue production and distribution, currently well over $1 million, the book must pay off in terms
of dollar volume to justify such an expenditure.

It is easy to create a catalogue that is sent to a selective list of silver or porcelain collectors, or polo
players, hunters, and fishermen, but it is infinitely more difficult to do one that covers such a broad variety of
gifts for all ages, for men, women, and children who live in all the climate zones, at prices which are affordable
by those with modest incomes as well as by the wealthy, and all in a quality standard representing the best in its
class. From an institutional aspect, Neiman-Marcus can’t afford to catalogue an item inconsistent with its
reputation for fashion, quality, and value. From a purely economic view, the company could not afford to take a
knowing risk on an item of even questionable quality out of concern for customer dissatisfaction.

In 1977, the Christmas catalogue marked the fiftieth year of publication. For the first thirty years the catalogues
were nicely printed but undistinguished presentations of gift assortments aimed at reminding customers that
Christmas was coming and Neiman-Marcus was ready to serve them. There was no visible effort to encourage mailorder
shopping.

In the mid-1950’s, as the European markets began to flourish, we started to amplify our selections with imaginative
articles we could buy for exclusive distribution. In the spring of 1956, I, with a few buyers, made a trip covering
Europe from Italy to Scandinavia, picking up three or four unique gifts from each country. We then went to Holland,
where we had a special full-color catalogue supplement printed by the historic printing house of Enchedé & Zohnen.
It was shipped by boat to the port of Houston, where a dock strike held up the cargo for weeks, almost causing us to
miss Christmas distribution. The results were gratifying, though we decided never again to have a seasonal mailer
printed outside the United States. This book proved to management and buyers alike that we could sell more expensive
merchandise through the mail than we had thought possible.

In that catalogue we introduced, for the first time, an Italian stainless steel man’s pocketknife with a single
blade, a file, and a folding pair of scissors at $2.95. We received 2000 orders and were forced to fly in the
reorder of 1000 pocket-knives to avoid disappointing the customers who had ordered them for gifts. We also featured
a set of six French steel steak knives with wooden handles at $6.95, which were far superior in quality to the
domestically made knives we had previously sold at higher prices. These two items have become perennials and have
appeared in almost every Neiman-Marcus Christmas book in the ensuing years, although the prices have risen to $11
for the man’s pocketknife and to $22.50 for the steak knives. The catalogue cover that year was designed by Ludwig
Bemelmans, the author and artist, and began the Neiman-Marcus tradition of commissioning catalogue covers by
distinguished artists. Not only did we get more exciting covers but, for the first time, we also picked up national
press coverage on them.

The following year, our man’s buyer found a handsome tool chest in a burl-walnut cabinet made by Asprey of London in
their own workshops. It had to retail for $550, an extravagant price at that time. He called me from London to get
approval of it, saying that he had bought two of them. Sight unseen, but on the basis of his enthusiasm, I
authorized him to buy a dozen. We received orders for twenty-five, ten more than Asprey was able to supply. In the
same catalogue we illustrated a sterling-silver thimble decorated with semiprecious stones for $2.50, which I had
found by accident in Florence when I was shopping for silver punch bowls. I have a habit when visiting showrooms of
poking around the shelves and looking into cupboards. That’s how I happened to find the thimbles which had been
stored away. The silversmith didn’t even want to make them anymore but, based on our punch bowl purchase, he agreed
to accept the thimble order. They retailed for $2.50, proving to be one of the most successful items we had ever
marketed. They were fine enough to send to a grandmother or a duchess; as a matter of fact, one was given to a
reigning princess.

When I told this story to a friend, he remarked, “That was a case of serendipity.” I had a vague recognition of the
word which I knew was coined by the writer Horace Walpole in the eighteenth century, but I wasn’t completely clear
as to its exact meaning. I found an article in a medical journal, edited by Dr. William B. Bean, in which he quoted
a Walpole letter in a book by Theodore G. Remer, Serendipity and the Three Princes. Remer reprinted a letter
in hich Walpole first used the word “serendipity.” He wrote, “I once read a silly fairy tale, called The three
Princes of Seren-dip:
As their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and
sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: For instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the
right eye had travelled the road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than
on the right – now do you understand serendipity?

Dr. Bean went on to editorialize, “Serendipity, thus, immediately is defined as the gift of finding, by chance and
by sagacity, valuable or agreeable things not sought for. It is not an ’either/or’ phenomenon, but both accident and
sagacity have to come in while one is in the pursuit of something else. Thus ’accidental discovery’ is not a synonym
for serendipity.” In other words, discoveries occur when you are looking for something – with your eyes wide open, a
lesson I have tried to teach to executive trainees.

In 1957, Saul Steinberg was persuaded to design the Christmas-catalogue cover and gift-wrapping paper, although he
subsequently found himself unhappy over the fact that his designs were being torn as the gifts. were opened, which I
deeply regretted, for I like to respect the wishes and sensitivities of any artist we commission. As a consolation,
I explained that many customers were buying gifts with the request that the paper be delivered to them in a roll
which they then had framed.

That we were making progress in encouraging buyers to do more creative work in the markets became evident in the
1958 catalogue. The glove buyer came up with the most ingenious idea of the season. While she was working on her
glove purchase, Roger Fare, the distinguished French glovemaker, showed her the thinnest ostrich skins that had ever
been tanned. “Why they are so thin, you could stuff one in a walnut shell,” he exclaimed. She immediately proceeded
to get some large French walnuts and stuff them with the gloves. The concept was so appealing to our customers that
she found herself stuffing walnuts all the month of December to fill the demand which this fresh idea had created.

Topping a great success story in successive years is tough, but we did so the next year when one of our executives
came up with the “His and Her” Beech-craft planes. The story was picked up internationally as well as in the
domestic press, and we were besieged with phone calls from foreign papers and television. As a backup page, just in
case “His and Hers” didn’t work, we featured a desert island scene with a complete set of the Modern Library, some
304 regular-size books plus 80 giants for $828.80. There was another thought behind the second page, as well. We
figured that if one paper grabbed the “His and Her” story, we’d have something else for the competing paper to write
about. That worked, too.

Picking the concepts for the big-idea pages is not easy; some years we’ve succeeded and other years we’ve bombed,
but on balance I think Neiman-Marcus has had a fine batting average. Some ideas sound good in the conversational
state, but don’t materialize well; some get poor execution in photography and presentation, others lose their charm
in print. The big-idea page must above all have origin ality, like the Chinese junks in 1962 and the “His and Her”
camels in 1967; it must have wit as well as humor; and, above all, it must be in good taste – and, incident ally, it
has been in this last area of qualification that most of the imitators of the big-idea page have gone astray.
However incongruous the idea may be, it must always have a slight degree of plausibility that makes the reader ask
the question, “I wonder if they really will sell one of those?”

Producing a Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalogue must be something like producing a movie. It goes into the selection
process in early June when a staff consisting of the mail-order director, the sales manager, the general-merchandise
manager, the fashion director, the copy chief, the art director, the production manager, the photographic
supervisor, the budget controller, and the final boss – the president – all meet with the one-hundred-odd buyers and
the fifteen divisional merchandise managers to look at the samples the buyers have selected from all over the world
as their proposals for representations in the book.

The attainment of merchandise balance is a major objective, and is accomplished only after severe probing and
analysis. Is there sufficient variety in gifts from $5 to $20? Are the cosmetic items overweighing the book? Will
the necktie selection appeal to a broad enough range in tastes, that is, for solids, stripes, bold, and conservative
patterns? In the desire to feature new fashion trends, have some of the classics been ignored? Is there a robe to
fulfill a grandmother’s requirements? For a young mother? For a college girl? Are there any gifts to send to a
family? Is there an adequate number of impersonal gifts which a man can send his secretary? Are there sufficient
novelties to entice the most sophisticated buyer? Are there any sure-fire sellers that can be depended on to produce
exceptional sales? Any moderate-priced universal sort of gift that will act as an “order starter”? Have expensive
gifts been properly represented? These are but a few of the hundreds of test questions that must be answered before
the selections can be considered final and the catalogue put into production.

No wonder the selection meetings, which go on for two weeks, are traumatic and leave buyers and merchandise managers
with wounded feelings and bruised egos. Decisions are made either by consensus or by the most senior voices present.
Invariably, after all selections have been completed, a few items drop out because of unavailability. Invariably,

after the book is printed, several manufacturers have fires or floods or other calamities that prevent them from
making delivery. Trying to guess the number of orders which will be received on each of the 450 items, and in what
colors and sizes, is like trying to guess the number coming up on a roulette wheel. If you order too many, you’ll be
stuck with the residue, and even the best gift of the season doesn’t have much value in a stock after Christmas.
Despite all of the problems of selection and forecasting, Neiman-Marcus ends up with less than seven percent of
orders which have to be canceled for lack of availability.

I found at one time there was a reluctance to include expensive gifts, for their sales predictability was less than
for popularly priced articles. To protect the store’s reputation, I instituted a section called “The Incomparables”
and reserved four pages for the gifts which could be described, “than which there is nothing finer.” Price was no
consideration so long as the quality and taste would satisfy the most discriminating wealthy customer. Interestingly
enough, these items sold, but since many were unique, we were unable to fill multiple orders.

To be sure that we didn’t forget the gadget-seekers and those who wanted fun gifts, I instituted a page which we
named “Things You Never Knew You Needed Until Now.” On this page went such greatly needed things as a live
armadillo, a bulletproof vest, worry beads, an eleven-foot pole for things you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
We received lots of orders and we hope we gave lots of laughs.

We strove to give the catalogue a light touch; we spoofed ourselves a bit, to make the task of going through the
book more enjoyable. We did a page of “lucky” gifts consisting of items considered lucky in their country of origin,
such as a shamrock pillbox, cuff links engraved with the Chinese symbols of good luck, an evil eye used to ward off
evil spirits, a Tasset el Rabah copper bowl with spinning fish from Lebanon, and the hand of Fatima made in
the Arab section of Jerusalem. My brother Edward conceived a “growing” gift for children with things that grew fast
enough to capture their imagination, like a baby elephant, a Galapagos turtle, and Peruvian corn which shot up to
fifteen or twenty feet in height. We sold one elephant at $500 f.o.b. Dallas, five turtles, and thousands of packets
of corn.

We exposed our customers to the most unusual products from the world’s markets and from the fertile imagination of a
very talented group of buyers and merchants. We originated the full-length, white ermine bathrobe lined with terry
cloth, selling three of them to customers in California, New York, and Illinois; we suggested look-alike sculptures,
or stand-ins, inspired by the hit mystery play of 1971, Sleuth, which were great on the stage but flops in
the catalogue. We designed a bedsheet imprinted with hundreds of little sheep for insomniacs to count and thereby
help them get off to sleep; in 1969, we foresaw the coming of the personalized home data processor by showing a
Honeywell kitchen computer programmed with recipes of the famous Helen Corbitt; we offered eight-foot long Quivut
scarfs, weighing four ounces, hand-knitted by the Eskimos from the underwool of the musk-ox, the numerous orders for
which created a minor labor crisis in the Arctic regions; for $5000, we presented a pair of narwhal tusks, mounted
in tole stands, which went to a New Orleans collector whose order was the first of 23 received; “His and Her”
manuscript letters by George and Martha Washington, sold to a dealer; a stop-and-go silver-plated gravy and
condiment electric train for a large dining room table, copied from an original commissioned in the nineteenth
century by an Indian rajah; and, in 1977, a limited-edition scarf, a

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