Cheesy Wheezy
CASE 4-1 CHEEZY WHEEZY
Starting as a small retail store in New Glarus, Wisconsin, the Cheezy Wheezy firm had slowly grown into a chain of nine retail shops located in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. In recent years, nearly all its competitors had begun issuing catalogs, widely distributed in late October, advertising gift packages of cheeses, jams, jellies, and other fancy food items. Henry Wilson, son of the firm’s founder, had convinced his father that Cheezy Wheezy should also issue a catalog.
It was then March, and the last snows were melting. Henry Wilson had called his third staff meeting in as many weeks to discuss the catalog project. Present were Henry (whose title was vice president); Susan Moore, the sales manager; Jeff Bell, the inventory manager; and Robert Walker, the traffic manager. Also present was Robert Caldwell, from a Milwaukee-based ad agency that was handling many aspects of the catalog project.
Moore and Caldwell had just finished describing the catalog’s tentative design and the allocation of catalog pages to various product lines. Caldwell then said, “We are to the point where we must design the order form, which will be stapled inside the center pages. It will be a single 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet. The customer will remove it from the catalog, complete it, fold it into the envelope shape, lick the gummed lines, and mail it in. The order form will be on one side of the sheet. On the other will be the instructions for folding and Cheezy Wheezy’s mailing address in New Glarus; the remainder of the space will be ads for some impulse items. Right now we’re thinking of a Santa Claus–shaped figure molded out of cheese.”
“Enough of that,” said Wilson, “this group isn’t here to discuss Santa dolls. We’re here to design the order form. We may also have to talk a little about selling terms. Susan?”
Responding to her cue, Moore said, “Our biggest problem is how to handle the transportation and shipping costs. We’ve studied all our
Starting as a small retail store in New Glarus, Wisconsin, the Cheezy Wheezy firm had slowly grown into a chain of nine retail shops located in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. In recent years, nearly all its competitors had begun issuing catalogs, widely distributed in late October, advertising gift packages of cheeses, jams, jellies, and other fancy food items. Henry Wilson, son of the firm’s founder, had convinced his father that Cheezy Wheezy should also issue a catalog.
It was then March, and the last snows were melting. Henry Wilson had called his third staff meeting in as many weeks to discuss the catalog project. Present were Henry (whose title was vice president); Susan Moore, the sales manager; Jeff Bell, the inventory manager; and Robert Walker, the traffic manager. Also present was Robert Caldwell, from a Milwaukee-based ad agency that was handling many aspects of the catalog project.
Moore and Caldwell had just finished describing the catalog’s tentative design and the allocation of catalog pages to various product lines. Caldwell then said, “We are to the point where we must design the order form, which will be stapled inside the center pages. It will be a single 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet. The customer will remove it from the catalog, complete it, fold it into the envelope shape, lick the gummed lines, and mail it in. The order form will be on one side of the sheet. On the other will be the instructions for folding and Cheezy Wheezy’s mailing address in New Glarus; the remainder of the space will be ads for some impulse items. Right now we’re thinking of a Santa Claus–shaped figure molded out of cheese.”
“Enough of that,” said Wilson, “this group isn’t here to discuss Santa dolls. We’re here to design the order form. We may also have to talk a little about selling terms. Susan?”
Responding to her cue, Moore said, “Our biggest problem is how to handle the transportation and shipping costs. We’ve studied all our