SHOP-BY-PHONE
My son Michael, built a decent business by himself, five retail stores, and a ware- house to support them. He was selling novelty T-shirts, license plates, and keys. It was a tough
Shop-By-Phone Logo 1992
business, but he was earning his way. All of his retail locations were located inside of Ames Department Stores. Each was a self-contained kiosk in front of the cash registers staffed by his employees. There was a vacuum system near those cash registers used to send the money to a secured location within each building. I suggested to Mike to use that system to make it easy for him to securely manage his cash. He followed my suggestion. It was a big mistake. Without notice, Ames declared bankrupt- cy, and Mike’s stores and his money was tied up in the chaos. He was devastated. I helped him out, and he sold the company. That is when he decided to join us. To make a little room for himself, he learned I was having trouble with clients who wanted to sell things over the phone. Direct marketing on television was just getting start- ed. Our clients had difficulty getting merchant status to accept credit cards for phone sales. They would sign up contingent on getting merchant status and then never return. Around this time, we also met Bob Case, a local Merrill Lynch investment banker. He had his eye on our business. Mike and Bob started playing racketball together. During one of those sessions, Mike challenged Bob to help him get the rights to provide credit card processing for our clients. Bob accepted. Months later Bob told us that the credit card processor he engaged to help us just got burned by a company similar to ours. Need- less to say, they were reluctant to provide merchant services to another telemarketing company. Bob went on to say, “That was their position until I offered them a million-dollar guarantee on your company.”
Michael Shooster with Forest Shooster (Front Right) and Staff at Global Response Fullfillment
I was dumbfounded. This fellow who hardly knew me extended a guarantee to our little company and soon after we got the ability to provide merchant services. Mike, packaged the new service as “Shop- By-Phone,” and out of that small beginning came a new division eventually occupy- ing 65,000 square feet of warehouse space providing 3rd party logistics. A few memorable accounts used Shop- By-Phone. I was surprised by the amount of business those companies could garner. One sold collectible stamps of Marilyn Monroe. That same company sold Elvis stamps. I would have sworn Elvis was still alive based on the volume of orders that poured in. The most important company to use Shop-by-Phone was Proctor and Gamble. A new low pollution washing machine was brought on to the market along with regu- lations designed to ensure acceptance. The new machine was side loading, instead of top-loading, using less water. It required a special type of soap. Since very few of those machines were in homes there was no place to buy the soap. That is where we came in. The machines were sold with a coupon that prompted the buyer to call an 800 number to order the soap. Soon, we received truckloads of soap and phone orders. To make things sweeter for the buyers a free hand towel was offered with each box. Thou- sands of boxes were sold. Many were repeat
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