From the category archives:

Catholic Retailing Tips

Again, Why Would You Move Manufacturing to China?

October 22, 2009

Maybe because things like having three priests arrested and then having the arrest denied by the Chines officials doesn’t bother you that much.
The whereabouts of three “underground” priests in northern China, detained by police months ago, are still unknown while another has apparently been persuaded to join the “open” Church, say sources.
Fathers Liu Jianzhong, Zhang [...]

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Idearc Media Update – Just Desserts?

September 24, 2009

You may recall that we had some serious problems dealing with Idearc Media for Google Adwords campaigns a few months back.
We told them multiple times that we weren’t working with them anymore and they kept charging us for services they weren’t providing. I finally spoke to our new sales rep, George (Nick is gone) who [...]

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Beware of Monastery Icons

September 21, 2009

Updated, please scroll to the bottom.
Bear with me, this post is going to get a little convoluted.
I am sure that you are familiar with the work of Monastery Icons. They make the western / eastern looking “icons” of saints. They have been popular because they give a Byzantine flavor to a lot of western saints [...]

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Two Men and a Brush – A study in Customer Service

September 16, 2009

This summer was a doozy for strange weather up in our part of Colorado. First, we didn’t really have summer since it rained almost every day from May through August. Second, we had a hail storm that lasted fifteen minutes and dumped quarter-sized hail on everything. Third, we had the “We’ll never have a tornado [...]

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Catholic Publishers Undercutting Your Business? Tough!

July 28, 2009

For a long time Ascension Press has been running sales on their products directly to the public and doing aggressive direct marketing to parishes for their Great Adventure Bible Study.
Recently, Ignatius Press started doing similar things – offering parishes products on commission, offering movie night packages for parishes and now, steep discounts on a lot [...]

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How About a Coffee Bar in Your Catholic Store?

July 22, 2009

Barney Paradise of Design Identity provided Aquinas and More with the design for our store when we first opened.  We sat down with him at the 2009 International Christian Retail Show in Denver where he discussed the changes that Christian stores are making in today’s market.  Thinking about putting a coffee shop in your store?  [...]

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Don’t Use Idearc / Verizon for PPC Google Adwords Management

June 11, 2009

A few weeks ago we explored some options for having our keyword advertising managed by an outside group and settled on Idearc Media, owned by Verizon. They seemed to have a reasonable grasp of things and except for some doubtful answers about Catholicism by our account rep, seemed like they would do a good job.
Boy [...]

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Marrying the Old With the New – How Do Catholic Stores Reach Today’s Customers?

June 11, 2009

(Reprinted with permission from CBA Retailers + Resources 05/09)
By Lauren Zaczek
With a last name like Zaczek and a childhood address listed in Chicago, it should go without saying that I come from an extremely Polish Catholic family. My relatives have occupied pews in the Windy City’s Catholic churches most Sunday mornings for generations now.
Although I [...]

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St. Anthony Messenger Cutting and Clueless

June 9, 2009

From The Deacon’s Bench:
The St. Anthony Messenger Press, the Cincinnati-based national provider of inspirational and educational Roman Catholic spirituality resources, announced Monday it is redefining its strategy and reducing staffing.
Father Dan Kroger said the 116-year-old communications company, based in Over-the-Rhine and sponsored by the Franciscan Friars of St. John the Baptist Province, is offering voluntary [...]

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Iron Mountain – a Study in Customer Service

May 26, 2009

Every year we take all of our shredding from the office to a secure document shredder. For the past few years we have taken our stuff to Docu Vault. This year when I made our delivery I found that Docu Vault had been bought by Iron Mountain.
When I walked in the front door the receptionist [...]

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