Fashioning Big Profits Knight's Ltd. Isn't Limited by Its Growth as a Specialty Apparel Catalog Business

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Grant Williams remembers when his company had eight phone lines. On a good day, they were always lighted, busy with customers calling in orders.

Now the company, Knight's Ltd. Catalog Group, has its own separate call center in Hazelwood. Operators staff 200 phone lines, fielding 1.5 million calls annually from readers of Knight's four catalogs.

The company could locate anywhere, of course, and most catalog firms choose California, Pennsylvania or Ohio. Williams and a partner started Knight's Ltd. as a gift catalog in San Francisco in 1979. They separated and Williams moved the business here in 1981. Knight's Ltd. became a catalog for mid-market women's apparel. …