Different catalogers handle matchbacks in myriad ways; see how

By Carolyn Heinze

Could one also assume that 25 percent of those customers threw the catalog away and weren’t influenced at all? “All you know,” Fry says, “is that they got it and that they placed an order.”

Matchbacks help Fry and his team on a more concrete level with square-inch analysis. “Having that information about customers’ orders still allows us to determine what’s selling in a catalog, and what’s not,” he says.