Principles of Catalog Shopping for Retailers, Part 1 of 2

1. Exploit the phenomenon of multichannel lift. Mailing a catalog delivers sales in its own right while increasing the value of customers who originate in the store or on your Web site.

After first buying from the store or online, customers with catalog-driven purchases show about twice the subsequent lifetime value of those with single-channel buying histories. This is for buyers with otherwise identical purchase histories, where the only difference is whether more than one channel was used.