PR - read articles about Forget Me Knot

We'd like to share with you an article from MSNBC.COM March 26, 2001 which included a profile on Forget Me Knot. Please click the link for the complete article or view the excerpts below.

KEEPING CUSTOMERS SATISFIED

Sharon Mitzman, owner of Forget Me Knot, took her gift-basket catalog company online in September 1997. She followed a careful budget and spent her funds wisely. And she also recognized the value of good, old-fashioned customer service. As a small business, she had a definite advantage in this regard.

Most large-scale competitors can't afford to track "each and every package" individually, Mitzman explains. Customer service departments tend to field complaints rather than head them off at the pass. Since Mitzman's company processes fewer orders than large pure-play shops, she was able to hire a person who makes sure each package is delivered. If a package is not going to arrive on time, the matter is resolved before the package is returned to the company.

She must be doing something right. Every year since the Edgewater, N.J.-based company launched, the Net business has doubled. This past year, she made "well over" six figures, started an individual pension plan and even took vacations. (Few full-time employees, these days, have all those benefits.) She also says that the Web drives traffic to the offline part of her business. Eighty percent of the company's customers did research on the Web, even if they end up placing the order on the telephone.

DOWNTURN OR WINDFALL?

Mitzman, of forgetmeknot.com, the gift basket company, believes the recent downturn has helped her business. "There's less competition," she says. Large companies like eToys.com and Amazon.com spent millions on commercials to lure consumers to the Net, and now they're retreating. (One of Mitzman's former competitors, a gift company called Send.com, closed its doors in January. "The uncertain outlook in the financial markets surrounding our business precluded us from continuing to grow and build Send.com," says a letter posted on the homepage what use to be the storefront.)

Yet cyber-savvy consumers still want to shop online and they're looking for new places to do so. Enter the nationwide array of mom-and-pop shops. Maybe, just maybe, the Internet will one day truly become that global marketplace we've all heard about — with a few mom-and-pops at the helm. Perhaps the recent "shakedown" just had to happen in this new frontier, leaving behind those unfit for cyberspace.

MSNBC.COM -- March 26, 2001 Please click for the complete article