A catalog that came before its store The Vermont Country Store began as a paper store before it was a shop. Vrest and Mildred Orton founded it at Christmas 1945 with a catalog Vrest printed in his garage print shop. The store in Weston, Vermont, came later, after catalog readers asked to visit it. The same family still …

How a one-page price list became the wish book, and why there is a Wards catalog again Montgomery Ward began as a single sheet mailed to farmers. It went on to become one of the largest catalog operations in the country. A catalog with the Montgomery Ward name still goes out today, but a different company mails it. The …

QVC and HSN: one owner, two separate channels QVC and HSN have had the same owner since December 29, 2017. On that date Liberty Interactive bought the 62% of HSN's parent company, HSNi, that it did not already hold. Both are now brands of QVC Group, Inc., and both have their headquarters in West Chester, Pa. They still …

Six garden catalogs you can request by mail Six mail-order garden companies will send you a print catalog if you ask, and each sells something different. White Flower Farm is a family-owned nursery that sells perennials, bulbs, shrubs and vines. Breck's ships flower bulbs from Holland. Gurney's mails a full-color …

Why a Specialist Catalog Beats the Home-Improvement Aisle A home center's tool aisle is built for a mixed audience. Anyone building furniture, cutting dovetails or outfitting a cabinet shop eventually needs a specific clamp style, a particular hinge system or a brand of chisel that a general store does not carry, and …

Furnishing a Living Room or Bedroom: Why the Catalog You Start With Matters Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Room & Board are three home-furnishing catalogs that a living room or bedroom project often starts with. Each one sells sofas, beds, rugs, and lighting; each one photographs a room instead of a single product; …

Why Dorm Bedding Shopping Doesn't Work Like Regular Bedding Shopping Ordering a bed set for a residence hall room starts with the mattress, and the mattress is not the same everywhere. Many colleges use an extra-long twin: Ithaca College publishes its residence hall spec as "twin XL beds (mattress is 36" x 80" x 7")." …

Why Dorm Storage Needs Its Own Shopping List Moving a semester's worth of belongings into a shared residence hall room means fitting a bedroom, a closet, and often a desk into a footprint far smaller than a typical bedroom at home. Most halls also come with rules that a general home-goods store doesn't have to account …

Why Move-In Day Needs a Different Kind of Backpack A backpack that gets a student through move-in day and then through four years of hauling textbooks, laptops, and gym clothes across a spread-out campus has a different job than the bag someone grabs for a weekend hike or a daily commute. It has to survive being packed …

Electronics and Gadget Catalogs: A Format That Never Really Left Search for almost any gadget today and the results page fills with dozens of near-identical listings from marketplace sellers nobody can vouch for. That flattening is exactly why a small number of specialist electronics and gadget catalogs have kept a …