Thrilled with its first catalog, eBags launches its second

Coming off a strong holiday shopping season supported by its first-ever catalog, eBags.com is sending out a second catalog due in mailboxes this week. "How successful the holiday catalog was really blew us away," co-founder and vice president of marketing Peter Cobb tells InternetRetailer.com.

EBags reported holiday 2002 sales up 101% over holiday sales of 2001, helping to produce profits for three consecutive quarters. It said holiday shopping visitors to its site also purchased at a rate 86% higher than a year earlier. Although eBags attributes much of this improvement to site enhancements over the past year, it also ties increased sales to the launch of its first catalog in mid-November in plenty of time for the holiday shopping season.

Cobb says its catalog strategy is intended to make more customers aware of the broad range of products eBags carries. Because many shoppers link to eBags.com from search engines or other sites that take them directly to a particular product, they often don`t see the other products eBags offers, he adds. The site carries more than 7,000 products in more than 150 brands.