SkyMall: The Ultimate Catalog Business Model

Imagine this: You print 16 million catalogs a year that are seen by 500 million upscale prospects (average pass-along ratio is 20-to-1), often cooped up for hours with nothing else to read. Annually, 700,000 orders are placed, typically for 2.1 items at a $110 average order size. Oh, yes, a few more eat-your-heart-out ingredients of your catalog business: You warehouse no inventory, you ship nothing, take no returns and you don’t spend one penny for postage or list rental. Two words describe this model: yum-yum.