Blair Corporation is one of America's largest
direct marketing
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''. By ...
mail order
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:
* Sending an order form in the mail
* Placing a telephone call
* Placing ...
retailers, selling clothing and household goods. Founded in 1910 as the New Process Company by
John Leo Blair
John Leo Blair (1888–1962) was an American businessman. He was the founder of New Process Company, now known simply as Blair Corporation – a direct market retail company. He was also an author, inventor, a pioneer in direct marketing, and an ...
, the company celebrated its 100th year in business in 2010. Blair is headquartered in
Warren, Pennsylvania
Warren is a city in Warren County, Pennsylvania, United States, located along the Allegheny River. The population was 9,404 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. It is home to the headquarters of the Allegheny National Fores ...
and has warehousing and distribution operations in the neighboring Irvine, Pennsylvania, as well as a
call center in
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 ...
. The company is well known for its retail catalogs, which are sent to millions of customers in the United States.
While most business is done through mail-order, phone, or online, Blair also maintains retail stores in Warren and
Grove City, Pennsylvania
Grove City is a borough in southeastern Mercer County, Pennsylvania, United States, located approximately north of Pittsburgh and south of Erie. At the 2020 census, the population was 7,894. It is part of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan ...
.
Blair is the largest employer in
Warren County, Pennsylvania
Warren County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 38,587. Its county seat is Warren. The county was formed in 1800 from parts of Allegheny and Lycoming counties; attached to Crawford C ...
, where it is based. Blair employs around 1200 associates.
Company history
Blair was founded in 1910 by John L. Blair, who originally took up an offer to sell raincoats. After several unsuccessful attempts at selling the coats, he was asked by an undertaker if he had any attractive black raincoats. He didn't, but it gave him an idea.
The idea John had was to take advantage of the relatively new process of rubber vulcanization to adhere an attractive black wool fabric to the outside of a rubber raincoat, with an inner lining of a Scottish plaid. His classmate agreed to begin producing just such a coat and supplied him initially with 1200 coats, which were purchased almost immediately. He actually had to send out letters of apology until new coats could be produced. Samples of his letters from as early as 1910 still exist.
With the help of his father and siblings, John mailed 10,000 letters to undertakers across America and the coat quickly saturated the market. He expanded with letters to ministers and businessmen, and he also expanded his product line. For the first few years his business was known as New Process Rubber Company, and by 1916 it was changed to New Process Company.
New Process Company went public in 1924. By the mid-1980s, New Process was also said to be the largest publicly held direct-marketer of clothing and home products in the United States, and also had the oldest continually traded stock on the
American Stock Exchange
NYSE American, formerly known as the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and more recently as NYSE MKT, is an American stock exchange situated in New York City. AMEX was previously a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1953, it was know ...
. Murray McComas, CEO at that time, appeared in a filmed interview on the floor of the America Stock Exchange to discuss the unique position New Process Company found itself in. In 1989, the name of the company was changed to Blair.
The company continued to grow. According to the Pittsburgh Press, in 1989, Blair had capabilities to process 100,000 orders per day, and was shipping as many as 75,000 packages a day. It had sales in 1988 of US$414 million, US$506.8 million in 1998, and US$420 million in 2007. Blair had 15 million Americans on its mailing list.
Continued growth
In the mid-2000s, Blair began to struggle with declining sales, due to the
recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
in the economy. In 2007, Blair shareholders approved a merger deal with Appleseed's (later renamed Orchard Brands), a subsidiary of
Golden Gate Capital Partners
Golden Gate Capital is an American private equity firm based in San Francisco. The firm makes investments in a number of select industries, including technology, financial services, retail and industrial, through leveraged buyout transactions, as ...
. Orchard Brands is a holding of several different catalog retailers who target the same market. Under the leadership of Orchard Brands, Blair has seen re-organization and increased efficiency, as well as growth as Blair facilities are being expanded to handle orders from other Orchard Brand companies. Blair's modern distribution center is being used to ship not only Blair orders, but orders for some sister companies as well. The call center operations have been expanded as well, to handle orders from those companies. After the merger, it was announced that 500 new jobs would be created in the region, due to the expansion at the Blair facilities. In 2007, Blair was ranked the 118th largest internet retailer by InternetRetailer.com. In 2010, Blair president and CEO Shelley Nandkeolyar announced his resignation, and he was followed by Dave Matthews, who served as interim CEO. It was also announced that Blair, as part of Orchard brands, was the 59th largest internet retailer. In April 2010, Dave Walde was announced as the new Blair CEO. Previously, Walde had served as the
chief financial officer for Orchard Brands. In 2011, Orchard Brands went through a bankruptcy; it exited under the control of debtholders, including American Capital. Orchard Brands had sales of
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
1.02 billion in 2014.
On May 27, 2015, Orchard Brands announced it was being acquired by Capmark Financial to be another business within the Bluestem Brands retail business.
In February 2018, Chris Wilson was named President of Orchard Brands with responsibility for the 11 brands that make up the portfolio.
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References
Mail-order retailers
Online retailers of the United States
Clothing brands of the United States
Companies based in Warren County, Pennsylvania
Retail companies established in 1910
American companies established in 1910
1910 establishments in Pennsylvania
Warren, Pennsylvania