Talk about capturing a market — Send A Package has done it.
The downtown firm has become New York’s inmate super store.
The recently launched company ships pre-approved care packages to prisoners in New York state jails.
Chris Barrett, a New York marketing executive and a former inmate, started the company 10 months ago. The business is growing at 20 percent a month, with plans to expand to state prisons across the US and eventually to send packages to soldiers and the elderly.
Barrett recognized the need for such a service when he tried to send a package to his brother, who is in jail, and many of the contents were thrown out because they did not meet New York State Department of Corrections guidelines.
Barrett, who owns a marketing company called NYC Promo Authority, said Send A Package was the only company of its kind — a one-stop shop — selling everything from sports and travel magazines to cosmetics, electronics and food. Other companies sold single items like T-shirts, he said.
He gets about half his orders directly from inmates, who receive 200 full-page color catalogs by direct mail. Prisoners spend on average $60 per order. Other orders are by phone and the Web.
Families and friends who spend $125 on an order qualify for free shipping. He’s selling $40,000 worth of items a month, and he has a team processing orders and working on customer service from company headquarters inside the Trump Building at 40 Wall St.
The company will be featured on “Mob Wives,” next Sunday on its Mother’s Day show, and Barrett is hoping that will further drive business.
“ ‘Mob Wives’ is our demographic,” Barrett said. “People who watch it have friends in jail, and family.”
The company also has the attention of Russell Simmons, who is an adviser to In Arms Reach (IAR), a charity that helps tutor and mentor children with parents in jail. IAR and SAP are partners.
The prison directive is specific about what is allowed. “You can have tuna fish, but not any kind of tuna fish — and the can has to be a certain number of ounces,” Barrett said.
Pringles are banned because they can be resealed; wine in products like salami also presents a problem. Clothing cannot be blue or black, which are police colors.
The biggest seller at Send A Package is food, and Barrett plans to add sneakers, boots, cigarettes and cassettes soon. (Prisoners are not allowed CDs.)
For now, the focus is on inmates in New York, where there are 72,000 prisoners in 60 state lockups.
First-time orders get a free wall calendar. “Inmates like to look at time and cross off the days,” Barrett says. Julie Earle-Levine
Still friends
On the Money is hearing that Wired magazine cover boy Marc Andreessen’s board duties might be putting too much pressure on his time.
The tech wiz sits on the boards of Facebook, eBay, Hewlett-Packard and a host of companies he’s invested in through his venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.
The founder of Netscape, the original web browser, sits on nine boards in total.
One source tattled that Andreessen and Facebook might be ready to part ways. But an insider countered that Andreessen sees his board duties as very important and has no plan to leave Facebook.
Besides, Andreessen quipped to On the Money via an intermediary, he’s been occupied with padding his Ph.D. in physics, a poke at Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson’s imaginative résumé. Claire Atkinson
Beefing up
Burger King, home of the Whopper, is splurging on a new campaign full of A-list celebs, including hunky soccer star David Beckham, rocker Steven Tyler and sizzling actress Sofia Vergara.
According to the National Restaurant Association, ad spending in the category is close to topping $6 billion in 2012 — and The King is gunning to leave its mark.
“McDonald’s spends over $1 billion annually, and [Burger King] is right behind them,” a Madison Avenue insider told OTM. “Even though [Burger King] will never pass McDonald’s in profits, they’ve been far more creative recently when it comes to the ad game.”
By taking a break from the awkward Burger King mascot, BK is hoping the fresh start will help it regain the No. 2 position for hamburger chains it just lost to Wendy’s, which rang up $8.5 billion in sales in 2011. (BK reported $8.4 billion, while McDonald’s remained far ahead with $34.2 billion.)
“[BK] chose the perfect people. Vergara takes care of the males, Beckham plays to the ladies and Steven Tyler the youngsters when you consider how popular ‘American Idol’ is,” added our source.
Burger King is now led by hedge-fund honcho Bill Ackman, who is hoping to take BK public by the time the leaves turn color. Joseph Barracato
