Merchandising: Juggling Stats?

Category Level
“The real power of analysis,” according to Minix, “comes from looking at the category level, not just the item level. Then you know where your customer is guiding you for growth, contraction, etc.”

The problem with that metric today is that most multichannel marketers receive so many orders online, but Minix’s calculation assumes all sales were driven by catalog presentation. “So I now recommend also looking at items per thousand orders,” he says. “This gives you a great idea of the demand penetration the item has. You can create an average for the effort — or for a period of time on the Web — and then index each to the average.”