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The Timeless
Splendor of a
Crystal Chandelier
THE DETRO IT JEWIS H NEWS
From
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An Unusual Opportunity
For The Discriminating
Home Owner To Save
During Our Chandelier Sale
ORCHARD
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cans
First in Fashion Lighting
28801 Orchard Lake Rd., Farmington Hills
(810) 553-8540
Getting Goodies
For Students
Joshua Frey sends care packages to colleges.
JAMES D. BESSER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
tart small, business school The kids love the packages for
teachers routinely instruct exam times or holidays; it's a
their students. The most pick-me-up," he said.
The students get the goodies
modest enterprises, prop-
erly managed, can burgeon be- but it's the parents Mr. Frey is
really after. He targets his mar-
yond all expectations.
That has become the guiding keting approach to parents who
principle for Joshua Frey, a 23- may be experiencing empty nest
year-old McLean, Va., man who syndrome.
"The trick in marketing this
is parlaying a small on-campus
business providing mail order product is to make the parents
noshes into a national concern want to purchase these packages,
serving college students around to satiate their kids," he said.
"This is a service specially de-
the world.
Granny's Goodies — Mr. Frey, signed for parents and grand-
a born marketer, insists that his parents who want to send nice
91-year-old grandmother, Shirley things to their children at col-
Levins, is his business partner — lege."
Like many successful busi-
provides "care packages" to col-
lege students around the world. nessmen, Mr. Frey took a small-
Mr. Frey is not the
first to tap the mail-or-
der food field. Al-
though no one has a
specific count, there
are other companies in
c =
this field, including
Kosher Cornucopia, lo-
cated in New York
State, that carries
kosher products only.
Mr. Frey is taking
mail-order a step fur-
ther, concentrating on
college campuses
where, he claims, he is
the first to bring so-
phisticated, targeted
marketing and credit
card convenience into
this highly specialized
niche.
Nobody knows ex-
actly how big the cam-
pus care package
industry really is, Mr
Frey said. There are
small-time entrepre-
neurs providing simi- Joshua Frey and his grandmother, Shirley Levins, are
lar services on business partners in his campus care package
hundreds of campuses business, Granny's Goodies.
around the country.
Most companies deal
only locally. Several large na- scale idea and dreamed big.
"I lived in a private dorm, and
tional concerns also offer a simi-
lar service, primarily through as part of the billing, they would
alumni associations and other col- provide care packages," he said.
"I thought it was a good idea —
lege-related organizations.
"The market is saturated on a but I immediately wondered
local level," Mr. Frey said in a re- whether it could be done on a
cent interview. "But there is a lot larger scale."
At the University of Wiscon-
of opportunity for people like us,
who want to market directly to sin, he began with a direct mail
campaign aimed at the parents
parents, on a national level."
Mr. Frey started his business and grandparents of incoming
two-and-a-half years ago while a freshmen. "The return was so
junior at the University of Wis- great, I decided to go to the next
level," he said.
consin, in Madison, Wis.
This past September, after he
"I noticed there was a real in-
terest among parents in care had graduated and been out of
packages, and I saw an opening. college for a year, he began push-
S