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

By Mary Ann Kleinfelter

Squinch reports provide a consistent and objective way to measure merchandise sales. They can help you decide whether to give your products more or less space, or perhaps not carry them at all. Large or small, B-to-B, B-to-C or hybrids, all multichannel merchants can use squinch analysis.

Examine Every Page
If your company is totally new to squinch analysis, start by examining the sales and profits for every page in your catalog. Naturally, some pages will have higher or lower sales and profits than others. The poorest-performing pages can be improved or removed and replaced with new products. Or, they can be used to feature products that need or deserve more space because they sell well. Many catalog marketers, especially those who extensively use spreads to sell, prefer to look at sales by spread.