Most catalogers cannot breakeven on the initial order mailing to prospects (which is why start-up catalogs have difficulty surviving). They depend on repeat purchases, i.e., turning buyers (one time purchasers) into customers (two and more time purchasers) for...
Understanding and applying industry benchmarks is the subject of our column this month. Benchmarking can be described as a set of performance standards for a specific task. Although there are many industry benchmarks which can be used as “standard” for all markets,...
Life-Time-Value (L-T-V) is the value of all of the purchases a given customer has made to-date plus the value of the purchases this same customer is likely to make (discounted for present value) over time. L-T-V helps determine how much you can afford to invest for a...
Catalog requests or inquiries generated from the Internet are valuable, like diamonds in the rough. How long it takes to fulfill these requests will determine their true value to your company. Best practice says that a prospective buyer should receive the catalog they...
What Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are critical to a catalog business? Which ones should you monitor? What can you learn from tracking these KPI’s on a daily, weekly and monthly basis? How can you make changes and implement improvements as a result of what you...
Manage by the ratios and the dollars will take care of themselves. And, keep in mind that dollars go into the bank, not percentages. Although there are many metrics to running a profitable catalog business, there isn’t one set of factors that works for all. For...
Brick & mortar retailing had a disappointing year and holiday season. We are witnessing a sea change in consumer buying which we can learn from. Shift to e-commerce and specialty store sales weighing heavily on department store results. First, let’s take stock of...
We live in a multi-channel world, and print/direct mail continues to play a significant role in maintaining the balance within all marketing efforts. It helps drive customers to your web site, creating an additional revenue stream. If you have a web business and are...
The idea of creating a smaller prospecting catalog (same trim size but with fewer pages) full of best selling pick-up items is appealing and sounds like a logical thing to do. It saves money, or so it seems, and in theory has little if any impact on performance. ...
