Strategy-Hurdling to Profitability (1,147 words)

I have always subscribed to the "one-third, one-third, one-third" rule as it relates to merchandise in a catalog. This means that one-third of the items in a catalog will be the real winners—the best sellers. One-third will perform so-so, and the other third will be non-sellers. If you rank your sales by item, you will probably find this to be true for you, too. It is not brain surgery to realize that some items will sell better than others, and every item is not going to pass the hurdle rate. Obviously, the goal is to know what items to drop, how to adjust the selling space for the marginal items, and how to select more top selling items.