A Giver

What you really want is to offer merchandise that causes customers to want to buy EVERYTHING you sell. That's how you know you're doing a good job.

Remember our table from yesterday? This brand has seventeen (17) merchandise categories. Reading across the rows, we see how much money a customer will spend next year in each category (columns) based on $1 spent in the category (row) previously. I weight historical dollars (100% past year, 60% 1-2 years ago, 35% 2-3 years ago, 20% 3-4 years ago) to add a "recency" component to historical purchases.

Here's the table.

Read across the row labeled "M09". This is Merchandise Category 9. This category is a GIVER. When a customer buys from this category, the customer spends more money next year EVERYWHERE!.

• $0.05 in Category 1.
• $0.21 in Category 2.
• $0.37 in Category 3.
• $0.23 in Category 4.
• $0.20 in Category 5.
• $0.22 in Category 6.
• $0.24 in Category 7.
• $0.11 in Category 8.
• $0.20 in Category 9.
• $0.29 in Category 10.
• $0.48 in Category 11.
• $0.33 in Category 12.
• $0.18 in Category 13.
• $0.33 in Category 14.
• $0.10 in Category 15.
• $0.26 in Category 16.
• $0.22 in Category 17.

This category is a GIVER. It delivers added value to every category. It either causes customers to "need" what is offered in other categories (i.e. an iPhone buyer purchasing an Apple Watch) or adds a halo to the brand experience.

This is the category that gets extra attention on your home page, in your email marketing campaigns, in social. You pay extra in Google Ads for items in this category. Terms like ROAS have no real meaning, because ROAS is what average marketers use to judge success ... you have a category that adds value to every category in the future ... you're willing to pay more to have more success.

And for the catalog marketers in the audience? Your catalog pages are too expensive now, you can't afford to feature stuff like you used to. Feature the categories that cause customers to buy everything in the future. Use your catalog dollars in a smart manner, ok? (and yes, I realize that won't happen but it should happen).