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Queen of the mail-order trade, Lillian Vernon
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By: ARLENE FINE Staff Reporter
The two retro-style pink-flamingo planters brimming with geraniums; the sturdy, red Swedish-made mailbox; and the weather-vane garden trellis that grace the front of Sheri Gould's front porch are charming additions to her South Euclid home. They are all straight out of her numero uno shopping spot - the Lillian Vernon catalog.
"Even when I think I don't need another thing, I'll kick off my shoes and browse through the catalog, and something happens to me," laughs Gould, 42. "I say, 'Oh, I want that - I really do.'"
Recently Gould ordered an inflatable water-resistant plastic pillow with a built-in FM radio for $9.95. "It's my toy of the week, and it's a riot to take to the pool," she says.
Reactions like Gould's please Lillian Vernon, founder of the multimillion-dollar mail-order company that has carried her trademark name for the past 53 years.
Vernon's premier place as queen of the mail-order trade reads like a chapter out of a Horatio Alger novel, albeit with a Jewish twist.
Born Lillian Menasche in Leipzig, Germany, the daughter of wealthy, upper-class German Jews, Vernon and her family were forced to leave their palatial home and sizable fortune and business behind when Hitler's henchmen confiscated their property.
The Menasches moved to Amsterdam in 1933 and then to New York in 1937. In 1951, Lillian Menasche Hochberg, then a new bride pregnant with her first child, started her company. With the support of her industrious family and $2,000 in wedding-gift money, she placed a $495 ad for a personalized handbag and belt in Seventeen magazine's back-to-school issue. (The belts were produced by her father's small leather-goods factory.) By the end of that year, she received an amazing $32,000 in orders. She took the name Vernon from her home in Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Five years after she placed her first ad, Vernon published her first black-and-white Lillian Vernon catalog, and her mega-million-dollar empire began.
"I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that my life and business success would ever reach the amazing level it did when I wrote that first ad," says Vernon in a recent phone interview from her home in Greenwich, Conn. "I consider myself incredibly lucky that I have a tenacious work ethic, and a marketing instinct (which she calls her golden gut), and a sense of enterprise. But timing was also a critical component to my success."
When Vernon started her business, there were only 50 mail-order catalogs. Today that number tops 12,000.
"I had plenty of naysayers along the way who said that the telephone would kill mail order because all people had to do was call a department store for merchandise," she says. "They said large connecting highways that led to newly built shopping areas would be my downfall, too."
Vernon, who remained CEO of Lillian Vernon Corporation until last year and was the first woman to have a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, proved those pundits wrong.
What they didn't consider, she says, was the introduction of credit cards in the mid-1960s and the large number of women who entered the workforce and did not have time to shop the stores. Also, the gas crisis of the early '70s added another incentive for catalog shopping. "The 800 numbers and the Internet have further fueled the catalog-shopping engine."
With an eye to the environment, Vernon says she does not sell any products that contain fur or ivory. Her mail order staff also knows that any request for personalized items that contain inappropriate words or messages will not be filled.
During her more than five decades in the business, Vernon says she has had some unusual requests, including marriage proposals. "A mail-order bride is one thing not offered in any of my catalogs," chuckles the thrice-married Vernon.
The mother of two sons, David and Fred Hochberg, Vernon says among her few regrets is the amount of time she was away from her family on world-wide shopping trips purchasing products for her catalog. But she says her family has remained closely connected over the years. In her book, An Eye for Winners, she paraphrases Auntie Mame: "Life's a banquet and I've never lacked an appetite for anything."
Although Vernon sold her corporation last year, she remains active in the company and serves on the board of numerous foundations and non-profits across the country. The Lillian Vernon Corporation donates to more than 500 charities each year. Among her favorite nonprofits are the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Jewish Women's Archives in Boston.
Her many national and international awards include the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, Bonds for Israel - City of Peace Award, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters National Hero Award.
Vernon will speak at the Jewish Community Federation's Lion of Judah event on Wednesday evening, Sept. 22. The Lion of Judah is a society for women who give more than $5,000 in their own name to the Campaign for Jewish Needs. For further information call 216-566-9200 ext. 220.
"Even when I think I don't need another thing, I'll kick off my shoes and browse through the catalog, and something happens to me," laughs Gould, 42. "I say, 'Oh, I want that - I really do.'"
Recently Gould ordered an inflatable water-resistant plastic pillow with a built-in FM radio for $9.95. "It's my toy of the week, and it's a riot to take to the pool," she says.
Reactions like Gould's please Lillian Vernon, founder of the multimillion-dollar mail-order company that has carried her trademark name for the past 53 years.
Vernon's premier place as queen of the mail-order trade reads like a chapter out of a Horatio Alger novel, albeit with a Jewish twist.
Born Lillian Menasche in Leipzig, Germany, the daughter of wealthy, upper-class German Jews, Vernon and her family were forced to leave their palatial home and sizable fortune and business behind when Hitler's henchmen confiscated their property.
The Menasches moved to Amsterdam in 1933 and then to New York in 1937. In 1951, Lillian Menasche Hochberg, then a new bride pregnant with her first child, started her company. With the support of her industrious family and $2,000 in wedding-gift money, she placed a $495 ad for a personalized handbag and belt in Seventeen magazine's back-to-school issue. (The belts were produced by her father's small leather-goods factory.) By the end of that year, she received an amazing $32,000 in orders. She took the name Vernon from her home in Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Five years after she placed her first ad, Vernon published her first black-and-white Lillian Vernon catalog, and her mega-million-dollar empire began.
"I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that my life and business success would ever reach the amazing level it did when I wrote that first ad," says Vernon in a recent phone interview from her home in Greenwich, Conn. "I consider myself incredibly lucky that I have a tenacious work ethic, and a marketing instinct (which she calls her golden gut), and a sense of enterprise. But timing was also a critical component to my success."
When Vernon started her business, there were only 50 mail-order catalogs. Today that number tops 12,000.
"I had plenty of naysayers along the way who said that the telephone would kill mail order because all people had to do was call a department store for merchandise," she says. "They said large connecting highways that led to newly built shopping areas would be my downfall, too."
Vernon, who remained CEO of Lillian Vernon Corporation until last year and was the first woman to have a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, proved those pundits wrong.
What they didn't consider, she says, was the introduction of credit cards in the mid-1960s and the large number of women who entered the workforce and did not have time to shop the stores. Also, the gas crisis of the early '70s added another incentive for catalog shopping. "The 800 numbers and the Internet have further fueled the catalog-shopping engine."
With an eye to the environment, Vernon says she does not sell any products that contain fur or ivory. Her mail order staff also knows that any request for personalized items that contain inappropriate words or messages will not be filled.
During her more than five decades in the business, Vernon says she has had some unusual requests, including marriage proposals. "A mail-order bride is one thing not offered in any of my catalogs," chuckles the thrice-married Vernon.
The mother of two sons, David and Fred Hochberg, Vernon says among her few regrets is the amount of time she was away from her family on world-wide shopping trips purchasing products for her catalog. But she says her family has remained closely connected over the years. In her book, An Eye for Winners, she paraphrases Auntie Mame: "Life's a banquet and I've never lacked an appetite for anything."
Although Vernon sold her corporation last year, she remains active in the company and serves on the board of numerous foundations and non-profits across the country. The Lillian Vernon Corporation donates to more than 500 charities each year. Among her favorite nonprofits are the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Jewish Women's Archives in Boston.
Her many national and international awards include the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, Bonds for Israel - City of Peace Award, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters National Hero Award.
Vernon will speak at the Jewish Community Federation's Lion of Judah event on Wednesday evening, Sept. 22. The Lion of Judah is a society for women who give more than $5,000 in their own name to the Campaign for Jewish Needs. For further information call 216-566-9200 ext. 220.
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