Key Ratios of a Successful Catalog Company

As a general rule, the lower the gross-profit ratio, the lower the selling-expense-to-sales ratio. For example, if you’re selling highly competitive, name-brand products, your gross-profit margin will be low, and your selling-expense-to-sales ratio also will be less than the industry average. While it would be nice to have it both ways — that is, high gross-profit margins and low selling-expense-to-sales ratios — this generally isn’t realistic.