Sales down but profits up at Flying Brands
Multititle mailer Flying Brands, whose catalogues include Gardening Direct and Flying Flowers, saw revenues decrease 9.7 percent to £30.6 million in 2009. Pretax profit, excluding one-off redundancy and reorganisation costs, however, was up 32 percent to £1.94 million, compared with £1.47 million in 2008. In a statement, chairman Tim Trotter said the company finished 2009 with “a stronger balance sheet and net cash of £2 million”. Its cost reduction and operational efficiency programme, which started during 2009, is now “well underway” said Trotter, who is confident that the business will succeed in its aim to achieve profitable growth in 2010.

Sales decline at Argos
Total sales at Argos declined 6.6 percent to £537 million in the eight-week period to 27th February 2010. Like-for-like sales declined 9.4 percent, partly due to the negative impact of the later launch of the spring/summer catalogue—a move to ease customers into paying the higher VAT rate introduced in January. At sister company Homebase, sales were flat compared to the same period last year, at £205 million. Despite the declines, Home Retail Group chief executive Terry Duddy said profit before tax for the year will be approximately £290 million, slightly ahead of market expectations.

Royal Mail signs packet deal with UK Mail
UK Mail has signed an agreement with Royal Mail that allows it to collect unsorted packages weighing up to 5kg from customers’ locations for sortation and onward despatch to Royal Mail for final mile delivery. Packet+, which will be available from 1st April, will service the UK mainland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, with track and trace facilities up to the point of Royal Mail handover.

Wall moves to Shop Direct
Jonathan Wall will join Littlewoods parent company Shop Direct on 5th April as ecommerce director. Wall was most recently chief executive at online florist Flowers Direct, and prior to that held the post of marketing director at Dabs.com.

Sales up at Jigsaw
According to published reports, apparel retailer Jigsaw enjoyed a 5.5 percent rise in like-for-like sales in February. Sales at its brand Kew rose 14.1 percent last month on a like-for-like basis.

Park to launch prepaid cards
Park Group, the savings-club catalogue business, is preparing to launch a range of prepaid cards that will be redeemable at UK high street retailers including Argos, Comet, Debenhams, and HMV.

CNP fraud decreases for the first time
Figures released by the UK Cards Association (formerly APACS) show that for the first time losses from card-not-present fraud have decreased year-on-year—down 19 percent from £328.4 million in 2008 to £266.4 million last year. Reasons for the decrease include retailers’ use of sophisticated fraud-screening detection tools and the increased take-up of online fraud prevention schemes such as MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa by online retailers as well as by cardholders.

What we learnt from 188 pre-Mother's Day emails
This past Sunday was Mother’s Day—a major event in the gift-giving calendar. You’d have assumed, as we did, that most of the email newsletters that landed in our inbox in the days prior would have had a special Mother’s Day offer. Not so it seems... To find out what we learnt from 188 pre-Mother’s Day marketing emails, click here.

• April issue: Email management AND our special bonus supplement on software and systems including Ernie Schell's annual order management systems roundup
• May issue: Double feature—affiliate marketing AND 3PL, looking at outsourcing operations

To advertise, contact the Catalogue e-business sales team on 01271 866112 or at sales@catalog-biz.com. To subscribe, contact Jill Sweet on 01271 866221 or at subs@catalog-biz.com.