Spencer Gifts LLC, doing business as Spencer's, is a North American mall retailer with over 600 stores in the United States and Canada. Its stores specialize in novelty and gag gifts, and also sell clothing, band merchandise, sex toys, room decor, collectible figures, fashion and body jewelry, fantasy and horror items. The company also owns and operates a pop-up seasonal retailer, Spirit Halloween.
A whoopee cushion is a practical joke device, which emulates the sound of flatulence.
Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response marketing. In contrast to direct marketing, advertising is more of a mass-message nature.
Edmund Scientific Corporation, based in Barrington, New Jersey, was founded in 1942 as a retailer of surplus optical parts like lenses. It later branched out into complete systems like telescopes and microscopes, and in the 1960s, a wide variety of science toys and kits. Through the 1970s and 80s they were best known for their mail order sales and associated catalogs, although they also maintained a retail presence at their factory store.
Pottery Barn is an American upscale home furnishing store chain and e-commerce company, with retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Pottery Barn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
Richard Warren Sears was an American company manager, retail businessman and the co-founder of department store Sears, Roebuck and Company with his partner Alvah Curtis Roebuck.
Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as:
Square-inch analysis is a method used by direct marketers to evaluate the profitability of the offers appearing in the pages of a mail-order catalog. The results of square-inch analysis are used to improve the process of assigning merchandise offers to pages and allocating space in future catalogs, a process called page planning or pagination.
Soren Sorensen "Sam" Adams was a Danish-American inventor and manufacturer of novelty products, including the joy buzzer.
SkyMall is a specialty publishing firm headquartered in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, best known for once publishing a self-titled in-flight publication, SkyMall, that at one point had an annual circulation of approximately 20 million copies distributed in airplane seat pockets. At one point, it reached 88% of US airline passengers. SkyMall is a multi-channel, direct marketer offering products through direct marketers and manufacturers through its SkyMall catalogue and website, skymall.com.
Spiegel was an American direct marketing retailer founded in 1865 by Joseph Spiegel. Spiegel published a catalog, like its competitors Sears and Montgomery Ward, which advertised various brands of apparel, accessories, and footwear, as well as housewares, toys, tools, firearms, and electronics. Their company brands included Newport News, Shape FX, and Old Kraftsman, among others. They also operated brick-and-mortar stores.
A catalog merchant is a form of retailing. The typical merchant sells a wide variety of household and personal products, with many emphasizing jewelry. Unlike a self-serve retail store, most of the items are not displayed; customers select the products from printed catalogs in the store and fill out an order form. The order is brought to the sales counter, where a clerk retrieves the items from the warehouse area to a payment and checkout station.
Carnal Comics is an American adult comics imprint established in 1992. Carnal Comics' flagship title is Carnal Comics: True Stories Of Adult Film Stars, which features autobiographies co-created with porn stars.
A practical joke device is a toy intended to confuse, frighten, or amuse individuals as a prank. Often, these objects are harmless facsimiles of disgusting or terrifying objects, such as vomit or spilled nail polish. In other instances, they are created as seemingly harmless items designed to humorously malfunction in such a way as to confuse or harm the target of a prank. The devices are frequently sold in magic or specialty shops, purchased over the Internet, or crafted for oneself. Perhaps the most notable such device is the whoopee cushion.
Disney Consumer Products, Inc. is the retailing and licensing subsidiary of the Disney Experiences segment of The Walt Disney Company. Previously, Consumer Products was a segment of Disney until 2016, then a unit of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media (2016–2018).
Xandria was one of the largest distributors of sex toys and adult videos, books and novelty items in the United States. It began as a catalog of sexual aids for people with disabilities at a time when the disability rights movement was in its infancy. Xandria was also one of the first companies to sell sex-related items online. The business closed in 2016 when Lawrence Research Group, Inc., which operated the business, filed for dissolution with the Nevada Secretary of State.
Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as a premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular.
Foster & Smith, Inc. was an American mail order and e-commerce pet supply corporation based in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. The company funds PetEducation.com, a "resource for any pet owner who is seeking information."
EMP Merchandising, also known as Large Popmerchandising, is a German-based music mail order and merchandising store. The abbreviation EMP stands for Exclusive Merchandise Products. The company distributes a quarterly catalog to customers. In a 2003 report, the Osnabrück Chamber of Commerce considered the company to be the largest mail order business for hard rock and heavy metal music in Germany. In September 2018, Warner Music Group acquired EMP from Sycamore Partners.
Comic book advertisements are a common feature in American comic books mainly from the 1940s onwards. As these advertisements were directed at young people, many made sensational claims, and sold the products for a few dollars or less, to be sent to a post office box. Products offered included novelty items, toys, and self-improvement courses such as drawing and body building.
