Category Development - One Category Growing Quickly

Ok, here's the first table I look at when evaluating categories and customers. This table is easy to produce, you probably already look at it, but it almost always tells a story. The table below shows five years of sales history by category, rank-ordered from the best-selling category to marginal categories. Ready?

Category 11 is the category to look at, isn't it? Sales have grown from $39.5 million four years ago to $59.6 million in the past year. This category grew by 12% in the past year, by 28% vs. the average of the four years prior.

Category 11 is a monster of a category, and it is clear that Management is allocating resources to that category. Or, the customer is choosing that category, right? It's hard to de-tangle the situation.

Regardless, Category 11 is going to be a key focus of our analysis. Of the remaining 11 categories, just one (1) showed sales growth (Category 2). Every other category posted a sales decline in the past year.

This stuff is so much fun to dig into!

P.S.: Interest in Category Development projects is on the rise - get in now before I get too busy (click here).