B-to-B Cataloging: Are You Right Sized?
So what should this cataloger have done before constructing a new building to house products that weren’t selling? Although the obvious answer is to analyze its sales, in this cataloger’s defense, the question of how to go about studying 30,000 SKUs can appear daunting.
The Big Book Challenge
If you have a catalog of more than 300 pages, you probably can’t run a full square-inch analysis, measuring and assigning advertising space to each product. But you still can produce meaningful reports that guide your merchandise selection, pagination and ultimately your page count. The key is determining the goal of your analysis. In this case, you want to determine which categories potentially could be expanded and which likely should be reduced in terms of page count.
- Companies:
- J. Schmid & Assoc.
A columnist for Retail Online Integration, George founded HAGUEdirect, a marketing agency. Previously he was a member of the Shawnee Mission, Kan.-based consulting and creative agency J. Schmid & Assoc. He has more than 10 years of experience in circulation, advertising, consulting and financial strategy in the catalog/retail industry. George's expertise includes circulation strategy, mailing execution, response analysis and financial planning. Before joining J. Schmid, George worked as catalog marketing director at Dynamic Resource Group, where he was responsible for marketing and merchandising for the Annie's Attic Needlecraft catalog, the Clotilde Sewing Notions catalog, the House of White Birches Quilter's catalog and three book clubs. George also worked on corporate acquisitions.
