An ageless practice, square-inch analysis remains a necessary evil for virtually all catalogers

By Mary Ann Kleinfelter

• Do you want to look at sales or profits?

• Will returns be included?

• How will overhead and/or fulfillment costs be included?

Keep your metrics consistent to compare and trend them. While it’s interesting to know how a widget sells in a single catalog, it may be more important to see how the sale of that widget changes over time. If you measured catalog sales for the previous catalog at 10 weeks after your mail date, for example, wait 10 weeks after the mail date to measure sales of the current catalog.