DAK Industries - 1980s

1980s

Before the Internet, companies like DAK relied on catalogs to generate sales and incurred the high cost of printing and mailing. A large enterprise would have to create a great many catalogs to get sufficient sales. In 1985, Kaplan was involved in a lawsuit with his former printer, and court records show that he had ordered a run of 3.8 million catalogs.

By the late 1980s, DAK was a $120 million-a-year business with around 400 full-time workers. It was selling everything from radar detectors and stereo speakers to security lighting systems, hand-held photocopiers, and televisions with 2-inch screens.

Kaplan's Template:Convert1/4 DAK catalogue was mailed across the United States and Canada, and its hallmark was the unusual first-person style of the ads, each with Kaplan's byline and with up to 1,400 words of text per page. Every word was his own. The catalog featured colorful product descriptions. For example, of a computer modem, he wrote: "Sex Education 1A. You need to determine whether your computer's . . . connector is male or female. If you look at the picture above, you'll note that . . . connector has holes going in it. It's a female. If it had copper pins sticking out, it would be a male. Now wasn't that simple? So, if yours is female, order our male cable and modem program. . . ."

DAK was responsible for bringing a number of electronic gadgets previously unknown or little known in the US market to the public's attention; among these included an early bread making machine, and an early laptop computer, the Epson PX-8 Geneva.