Should You Create a Spin-Off Catalog?

For example, a food mailer would have a hard time starting an apparel spinoff with its brand, even though a large percentage of its customers may buy apparel by mail. (You can find out what else your customers are buying from catalogs by getting marketing reports from Abacus or Z-24.)

After you determine you have the opportunity for a spinoff, evaluate your situation. The most important thing is that the spinoff increase your sales and profits enough to offset the additional costs and also leaves a nice return on your investment. If you’re not adding more pre-tax profit, but getting additional top-line sales, then your efforts haven’t been successful. In fact, you may be damaging your core business with time and focus exerted on the new effort.