Shop Talk:

A: The answer, in my opinion, is that you often have to allo-
cate more money to both catalog and search each year. This isn't necessarily the answer people want to hear, but it basically reflects the reality of the customer experience.

The best way to learn what you really need to do is to execute mail and holdout groups. For your catalog, select 50,000 households, dividing them into two groups — one group is mailed all catalogs for a quarter, one group isn't mailed any.