The Success Of Lillian Vernon

It all began

with black and white in 1951. Today, nearly 45 years later,

the mail order business of Lillian Vernon has swept the mail

order market and maintained a financial foothold where

others could not. Lillian Hochberg (now known as Lillian

Vernon) started her business at her Lillian's motivation was

to supplement her husband's then $150 dollar a week

income by working from her home. She could be

homemaker and help with the finances too. Her success

started by using $495 dollars of wedding gift money to

place an mail order add in Seventeen magazine selling an

inexpensive leather belt with matching purse that she herself

had designed. As a hook, she offered to moaker in the

Chelsea district of New York, manufactured the two items

for around $3 dollars. The purse and belt came in black,

tan, or red and sold for $7 dollars.(Youman, N, 1989, pg

26) After 6 weeks of advertising Lillian had received over

$16 thousand dollars in mail orders. Her belt and purse

were such a hit, she immediately increased her inventory to

inexpensive jewelry and make-up paraphernalia. Over the

past 45 years, Lillian has had two sons, Fred and David

Hochberg, both of whom joined their mothers business and

quickly rose up through the management ranks. With their

help, her -little business+ went public in 1987 on the

American Stock Exchange. Since the Lillian Vernon

Corporation. went public, it has overcome the unavoidable

but near fatal traumas that face every entrepreneurial

enterprise. In this case, inadequate computing capacity and

inefficient warehome the customer places the order to the

time they receive the merchandise in the mail. Lillian

Vernon has not relied on demographics to sell her products

to the public. Instead, her secret to success lies in womens

intuition. The lean seat-of-the-pants operation she prefers

makes her company tremendously agile. For example, in

1985, Lillian spied the cacooning trend and immediately put

a furniture specialty catalog together. She got the trend right

but the bulky orders overwhelmed the company+s

fulfillment capability. (Youman, N. 1989, pg 26). In 1993,

when Sears announced that after many years it will cease

publication of its giant catalog, known as the -wish-book,+

a very long ch During the time when the mail order giants

were cutting back, the Lillian Vernon Corporation.

reviewed their catalog databases to clear out customers

who had not ordered in quite some time. During their

review, they found that many of the active customers were

buying presents for children and grandchildren. This caused

the corporation to create its first niche book called -Lilly+s

kids.+ Lilly+s Kids does $30 million in sales of toys and

school equipment. (Lightman, 1996, pg 1) Now, Lillian

Vernon has targeted 1. Make time for yourself and your

family. 2. Surround yourself with the best people possible.

3. Be open to new ideas and better ways of doing things.

4. Be prepared to take risks. 5. Like what you do and like

what you sell. 6. Don+t dwell on your mistakes or

setbacks, but instead learn from them and move on. Never

let mistakes defeat or discourage you. 7. Don+t try to do it

all----Delegate! 8. Don+t grow too fast without the proper

systems