Stage Stores Wins Business Development Award at National Postal Forum

Houston, TX — Local retailer Stage Stores was honored with the “Strategic Business Development” Award today at the National Postal Forum being held in Anaheim, CA. The National Postal Forum, which runs May 18-21, is the premier educational event/experience and tradeshow available to mail professionals today.

Stage Stores, Inc. is a Houston, Texas-based regional, specialty department store retailer offering moderately priced, nationally recognized brand name and private label apparel, accessories, cosmetics and footwear for the entire family. Stage operates nearly 700 stores located in 35 states. Stage Stores Inc. operates under the Stage, Bealls and Palais Royal names throughout the South Central states, and under the Peebles name throughout the Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern, Midwestern and New England states. Their principal focus is on consumers in small and mid-size markets which Stage believes are under-served and less competitive.

Stage Stores Inc. uses direct mail in its marketing approach to position stores as the local destination for brand name merchandise. Their primary target is women 25 and older with annual household incomes of over $35,000. Approximately 67% of their stores are located in small towns and communities with populations below 50,000 people, while an additional 19% are located in mid-sized communities with populations between 50,000 and 150,000 people. Stage has mailed over 10 million pieces in the first quarter.

In order to speed in-home delivery times of direct mail pieces, Stage uses Priority Mail to drop ship mail into the USPS Sectional Center Facility. And CONFIRM Planet Codes are strategically placed within mailings to monitor in-home dates. Stage is also already using the Intelligent Mail Barcode. During the recent Christmas holiday when retail sales were down nearly 10%, Stage used a direct mail discount coupon to rally from their slump. Store traffic improved and sales increased. STAGE believes in the value of Direct Mail for increasing store traffic and driving additional sales.

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation — 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.