Advertisers
In This
Issue

Donel Lingerie

G World Collections

Vestiny

Lingerie Americas

Tia Lyn 
Lingerie

Interludes Lingerie

La Lame, Inc

Electric
Lingerie

Music Legs

Shirley of Hollywood

Elegant Moments Lingerie

Delicate Illusions

Coconut Grove

JWS Intimates

Tony Shoes

International Lingerie Shows

Classique Lingerie Show

Fantasy Lingerie

Miko Exoticwear

McPete Sales

Questfinder

Quick Commerce Credit Cards

Internetgazette

Sponsor's
For This
issue

Questfinder

Submit2

Internet Gazette

Articles Of Interest

EU to Impose Trade Sanctions on Belarus
Page 1

Preliminary Antidumping Duties
Page 1

 Bangkok Fashion City Project Canceled
Page 1

$6M Fake Fashion Seized
Page 1

Sales on Sheer Pantyhose Slide
Page 2

Buyers' Best Sellers
Page 2

Ask Andy
Page 2

McPete Sez
Mailbag
Page 2

Smart Clothing
Page 3

Fredrick's Dismantles Museum
Page 3

Ask Kevin
Page 3

Cortefiel Rejects CIE Claims
Page 4

Lingerie & PJs Help to Raise Money for Charity
Page 4

Eurovet Eyes Chinese Lingerie Market
Page 4

Adult Pop Up Books
Page 5

The Buzz
Page 5

Reps Corner
Page 5

Shows & Events
Page 5

We Accept all
Major Credit Cards for Advertising

Foreign Exchange Rates

International Size Charts

Put my Banner
on your Web-site,
Click here and Link it to
www.mcpetesez.com

                                      Page 3                 
H&M Up 11% in November
Top European fashion chain H&M said sales in local currencies including VAT increased by 11% year-on-year in November. 
The company now operates 1,345 stores globally compared to 1,193 a year ago. 

                    
5/12     
Benefits of Smart Clothing
Few things encourage businesses to be more imaginative than the opportunities presented by new technology. But the latest high-tech fad involves the mother of all things - fashion. 
"Smart" textiles that can respond to touch or carry electrical signals have prompted entrepreneurs to develop an array of innovative clothes and consumer products. 
Smart fabrics and interactive textiles (SFITs) are made by weaving new conductive materials into fabrics, which turns them into sensors and electrical conduits. Chris Rezendes, executive vice president of Venture Development Corp., a market research firm based in Natick, Mass., says the global market for SFIT materials is worth $300 million to $500 million. 
This marriage of consumer electronics and fashion has prompted British companies Eleksen Group, Fibretronic Ltd. and Softswitch Ltd. to compete to integrate controls for personal electronics goods such as iPods into clothing. Eleksen has also designed flexible fabric keyboards for partners including Microsoft Corp.
London-based CuteCircuit is pushing the envelope with its Hug Shirt, which hits the shelves next year. 
The shirt measures pressure, heartbeat and temperature as a wearer hugs him- or herself. A mobile phone transmits the data to another shirt, which replicates the hug. The shirt will cost "around the same as an iPod," executives said.
"A lot of those first applications have been a little gimmicky, and that doesn't make for profitable, robust businesses, unfortunately," warned Rob Ricketts, a consultant at Pera, a company that advises on commercializing innovations. 
He said SFIT designers were still pushing the technology without having found the right product: "We're waiting for the application that makes people stand up and recognize that this isn't just for iPod jackets." 
Those applications exist beyond fashion in markets such as health, the military and emergency services, Rezendes said. The key will be to make these applications relevant for the consumer market — for example, with textiles that monitor a wearer's vital signs, such as heart rate, and then transmit the data to third parties.
Rezendes predicts that an aging, affluent population will be a significant market for garments that can monitor the welfare of the elderly.
Philips Design, a division of Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics, has developed a fabric that measures and transmits heart activity data to a personal digital assistant. The company is participating in a European Union-funded project called MyHeart, exploring smart clothing that can provide early warnings of heart disease.
Early commercial products using such technologies are showing up in the sports consumer market.
Textronics Inc., a spinoff from former DuPont Co. textiles unit Invista, sells a sports bra that senses the wearer's heartbeat and sends the data to a wrist device to help a user monitor her heart rate during workouts. And Ventura-based VivoMetrics Inc. has sold its LifeShirt to the military and emergency services markets. 


9/24                          www.delicateillusions.com

When Insults Had Some
              Class 
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."  Winston Churchill 
"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."  Winston Churchill 
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."  Clarence Darrow 
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." -- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway) 
"Poor Faulkner, Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" -- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner) 
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." -- Moses Hadas 
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." -- Abraham Lincoln 
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." Groucho Marx 
"I didn't attend the fune ral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." -- Mark Twain 
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." Oscar Wilde 
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend . . if you have one." -- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill 
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second . . . if there is one." -- Winston Churchill, in response 
"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -- Stephen Bishop 
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." -- John Bright 
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." -- Irvin S. Cobb 
"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." -- Samuel Johnson 
"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." -- Paul Keating 
"He had delusions of adequacy." -- Walter Kerr 
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." -- Jack E. Leonard 
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." -- Robert Redford 
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." -- Thomas Brackett Reed 
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." -- James Reston (about Richard Nixon) 
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." -- Charles, Count Talleyrand 
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." -- Forrest Tucker 
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -- Mark Twain 
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." Mae West 
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." -- Oscar Wilde 
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts .. for support rather than illumination." -- Andrew Lang (1844-1912) 
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." -- Billy Wilder 


2/24 

Fredericks Dismantles 
            Museum
Holiday shoppers found seductive stocking stuffers and naughty gifts at Frederick's of Hollywood's flagship store on Hollywood Boulevard. The silky chemises, outrageously tiny thong panties and lacy brassieres are all there, many offered in bright Christmas red and New Year's Eve black.
But where is the mannequin of Milton Berle in his drag dressing gown? Where is Madonna's black and gold bustier? Where is Mae West's marabou-bedecked negligee?
To the consternation of some local kitsch lovers and underwear fetishists, Frederick's of Hollywood quietly dismantled its Lingerie Museum and Celebrity Lingerie Hall of Fame when the underwear emporium moved three blocks west to a more upscale location.
Nevertheless, some guidebooks and tourism websites still list the vanished displays. And visitors still ask for the small and unusual museum, which was founded in 1987 and featured, at various times, Natalie Wood's bra from "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," Tom Hanks' boxers from "Forrest Gump," Susan Sarandon's garter belt from "Bull Durham" and Tony Curtis' cross-dressing dainties from "Some Like It Hot." 
"A nice, free attraction that was fun to visit" is the way Robert Nudelman, an activist in Hollywood Heritage, a preservation group, described the museum inside the former store. "It did have its place in local color and scene here and it did have an impact in bringing in visitors." 
Nudelman recalled its moment of international fame during the 1992 riots, when looters invaded and stole a bustier Madonna had worn on a concert tour, along with a lot of retail merchandise. 
The new shop, on Hollywood Boulevard by the corner of McCadden Place, is closer to the Highland Avenue tourism buzz than it used to be. Decked out with crystal chandeliers and leopard rugs, it projects a more elegant tone in which, museum fans suspect, Ethel Merman's girdle might not fit.
Company spokeswoman Jennifer Cornwall said the new store did not have room for the museum, so most of the items were packed off to a warehouse in Phoenix.
Frederick's officials are "trying to figure out some creative ways" to move some of the pieces back to Hollywood in the future, she said. The company declined to release information about individual historic undies until a proper inventory is completed; then the firm will decide "what to do from there," she said.
"It was great to have this historic value in Hollywood, but we are also trying to update the look of the product and of the store," Cornwall said.
Meanwhile, she said, visitors to the new store can see displays of bras and corsets designed by celebrities for charity auctions sponsored by Frederick's. Seven are now exhibited, including ones by Halle Berry (think faux feline skins) and Sharon Stone (a lot of butterflies).
A pioneer of black lingerie and the push-up bra, Frederick Mellinger founded his business in 1946 in New York and moved it to Los Angeles a year later. One of the museum's displays included a photo of Mellinger and his comment on how a certain bra in the 1960s transformed a woman: "Came in looking like a Chevy and left looking like a Cadillac." 
Also exhibited were early bras produced by Frederick's, including the black lace Rising Star — made to deepen cleavage — and others named Peek-a-Boo and Bird Cage.
Mellinger, who died in 1990, was "a genius, not a dirty old man" recalled Ruth Frolove, the chain's longtime bra buyer and unofficial early curator of the museum. She sought to counter old complaints about tawdriness: "Why should anything about that be offensive? It's garments women wear every day," said Frolove, now retired in Temecula. 
The company's racy inventory held it in good stead until financial problems, overexpansion and competition from Victoria's Secret, among other things, led to a filing for bankruptcy protection in 2000. Since then, Frederick's has been reorganized and is on the rebound.
Leron Gubler, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said he has not heard a peep of protest about the museum's closure. Instead, he said how happy he was that Frederick's remained committed to the neighborhood and renovated another storefront.
"The fact they stayed and kept the retail business on Hollywood Boulevard was more important," he said.


5/12     
"Ask Kevin"
      For all of your website questions...
Kevin and his wife have been retailing lingerie and adult products since 1988. They believe that a large portion of their business success came from the  addition of their websites to their retail store and that in today's fast paced market, internet marketing goes hand in hand with any business.
Kevin's personal site design experiences include all levels of internet marketing and design including secure server ordering processes, merchant account integration, HTML editing, photo editing, graphic design and banner advertisements. All of which are needed on a business style website.
Kevin also designs websites and consults clients who want to do more business online.
Kevin welcomes your questions and comments regarding website design, internet marketing, photo editing, domain registrations hosting and more. For serious website entrepreneurs, he recommends this course for complete Internet marketing training. Internet Marketing & Site Optimization Tips: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/848190
You can ask Kevin your questions at Kevin@mcpetesez.com

Kevin- 
I have been a follower of your column and advice on web sites for quite a while but as the sales manager I am kind of in a quandary now as to what our priorities and direction should be. Your comments in the December mcpetesez prompted me to contact you. I went to the links you suggested on building your internet business but think we need a different point of view than they offer.
We have been in business for over 30 years as a privately owned, international, better priced manufacturer of intimate apparel catering to the average to full figure customer. 
We outsource the management of our site on a part time basis and updated it about 6 months ago adding key words, meta tags, etc and the results have been disappointing so far. We get thousands of hits and views but orders are not where I think they should be. 
When I do a search on relative key words we don’t appear on the first several pages and from what I’m told by the “experts” that means we will not attract the buying consumer to our site. I have spoken to numerous on line marketing companies and if we pay them a monthly fee they “guarantee” us a sponsored link on the first page of the major search engines. I don’t mean “ pay per click” which is now in disfavor but a link to our site on the first page based on certain key words.
I have to now make a recommendation to our owners for a strategy to do more business on the internet but I’m not quite sure or convinced of a direction to go in. So my questions are-
Is there a statistical relationship between hits, views and orders?? I need some sort of a metric to track and monitor progress??
Is our site friendly to the search engines and their spiders and robots?? I’m told it’s attractive and easy to navigate.
Do we have the right key words??
What are your thoughts on buying guaranteed placement on the search engines pages??
Am I missing something as I read more and more about how much business is being done on the internet and I feel that we are not keeping pace? 
Thank you for any assistance, suggestions and recommendations.
George

Hello George,
Thank you for your questions in regards to increasing sales from your website. I am impressed with the simplicity of its design and layout which makes it easy to navigate and find what you offer from it.
My answer to your first question pertaining to "statistical" relationship to views, hits, and orders... If you are responsible for the management of your internet sales, get access to your statistics yourself if you don't already have them. These are very important marketing tools to serious online retailers. The firm that you outsource your site maintenance to should have access to them and be able to forward them to you. If not, "insist" on it. You can also purchase statistic programs or outsource for this valuable information.
Your "stats" will show you your hits, unique hits, daily views, popular page views, entry / exit pages and other vital information that you can use to make intelligent changes to your site in order to increase sales. 
You or an employee should be directly involved with these tasks yourselves which will provide you instant knowledge that can be used to direct your outsourced management firm for your site.
Your site is friendly to search engines, spiders and robots to a degree. Google and Yahoo may be giving your site less than desired listing placements for a couple reasons though. You are using the exact same keywords and description on every page of your site. You are right to have these items on the HTML code of each page but a search engine may see this as a ploy to manipulate their listings if used identically on each page. Try using keywords that are exclusive to the page and different from the home page keywords. If your page theme is "panties", use keywords that imply panties. The same goes for your descriptions on each individual page per theme.
I also suggest not having your company name repeated so many times on your keywords and also not at the beginning of your keyword coding. Your keywords should be more related to the page theme and what you offer from that page and category. Use your name as one of your keywords but concentrate more on other words that directly imply what you have on that page.
If your company budget allows for internet marketing ad spending, it is beneficial to purchase Google Ads and similar campaigns to assist in better listings. Be aware of schemes though in this area though. It is best to go to the Google or Yahoo sites and follow the links to their advertising categories.
Another marketing tool you can add to your site that will increase listings is "ALT Tags" for all of your graphics and pictures. These are excellent places to add keywords on each page and will gain you favorable results with search engines especially on your "home" / index page. 
I will be submitting a detailed story to the McPete Sez Newsletter explaining ALT Tags in the near future. Thanks again for your questions. 
Good Luck with your online marketing!
Kevin

The "Ask Kevin" Column is an opinion Column and may not necessarily  reflect the views of  McPete Sez.       


      
Hey Sales Reps !!!
Would you like to write an article for this newsletter? we are looking for information for our readers and if you have anything to contribute  please e-mail me.  
            




                                                                       
                                      End of page 3