How to Determine Appropriate Page Counts

5. Profile the 10 worst products to know the types of items to avoid.

Use square-inch analysis to know which items to retain, drop or add to the catalog. In a properly merchandised catalog, about one-third of the items will be winners, another one-third will sell close to your square-inch break-even criteria, and the remainder will need to be replaced with new products. So aside from the decision to add pages, about 30 percent of the products in a typical hard goods catalog (e.g., gifts) should be replaced each print cycle.