But read these six lessons first.

By Alicia Orr Suman

4. In testing, allow enough cycle time. Once you commit, give the category a chance. Says Minix, “You need a bit of an iron stomach; you may have to fund that category’s development for a few seasons to give it a chance.”

For example, if you’re expanding into footwear, know that customers may need to see the new items in one or two catalogs before they’re ready to try them. Revello agrees and offers an example from her days at Panache: “We decided to test food. But nobody knew us for food. So we had to make a commitment to do it again, so shoppers would see it more than once on the pages of the catalog.”