tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post4368108284632925687..comments2023-10-18T08:32:17.510-07:00Comments on Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData: Dear Catalog CEOs: Much Smaller CatalogsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post-88851766976593675152009-10-27T05:30:46.462-07:002009-10-27T05:30:46.462-07:00Thanks for the idea of the ratio between telphone ...Thanks for the idea of the ratio between telphone sales and online sales. I guess this is because customers more and more discover the online-offering and thus remain active without the BIG catalog. Catalogers can tease them to go to the website instead of doing all the sale-through via the catalog?Martin Gross-Albenhausenhttp://twitter.com/grobinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post-32628846716748779842009-10-26T08:24:29.475-07:002009-10-26T08:24:29.475-07:00Well, that's why we recommend testing the stra...Well, that's why we recommend testing the strategy, right? Every company and every geography have unique customers with unique characteristics.<br /><br />Some of this has to do with the evolution of the customer. What you describe is exactly what I saw at Lands' End and Eddie Bauer in the 1990s. You can correlate telephone sales with this phenomenon. When telephone sales do not contribute much to total sales, then catalogs can get smaller. Watch ratios between telephone sales and online sales --- this sometimes dictates how small catalogs can get.MineThatDatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014200122021988374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post-45221692199328830462009-10-26T08:16:46.948-07:002009-10-26T08:16:46.948-07:00Kevin, we have tried this several times in Germany...Kevin, we have tried this several times in Germany in the B2B. Every time, the initial metrics were like you stated. In the long term however the average order value and the sales per customer per year reclined much more than could be compensated by less catalog costs. Maybe a matter of "competence" in merchandise. One cataloger stated that big books yield big budgets with the customer. They even tried to acquire new customers with small books and upsell the respondents with big catalogs. But the customers AOV remained at the level of the first catalog impression, i.e. a small one.<br /><br />I can't say the same holds true for B2C. What the big book-cataloger always worry about is the Sears example. Splitting the big book in smaller ones and loosing your shirt...Martin Gross-Albenhausenhttp://twitter.com/grobinoreply@blogger.com