Saks Inc. (Birmingham, Ala.) has announced it will eliminate two catalogs and fold Saks.com into its Saks Fifth Avenue division. Its Folio and Bullock & Jones catalogs will be discontinued as of next February, which will reduce Saks Direct revenues by an estimated $45 million in 2002.
According to ceo R. Brad Martin, the catalogs will be replaced by the chain's Store Books in an attempt to capture some of the Folio direct-mail business. “We will increase the circulation of the Store Books to include the high-value Folio customers,” he said, “and we will add direct selling tools throughout the Store Books, such as displaying 1-800 numbers prominently on each page and inserting customer order forms inside the books.”
Saks.com, originally designed as a standalone business, will be brought into corporate structure and reduced in size because of lower-than-expected sales, the company said. Saks said it expects catalog and online sales of $100 million this year, down from $126.7 million in 2000.
The retailer also reported a 10.3 sales decline in May same-store sales for the four weeks ending June 2, 2001.