What Sells Where?

A product that generates your greatest total dollar sales is clearly a best-seller; your merchants have nailed the sweet spot in terms of price, quality and desirability with a great product that resonates with customers. It also could be a product that’s underpriced (relative to the competition) and/or representative of a product category that should be expanded. These products are perceived as “great deals” by customers and build brand loyalty for your company. They’re also terrific choices for catalog covers and feature status on Web sites.

A product that achieves high total unit sales also is a best-seller and quite often a signature product for your company. The product may be a loss leader, but has proven to be an “evergreen” item that customers — new or old — will seek out and continue to buy from you. It’s particularly relevant when a high unit sales item draws significant numbers of new customers.

This could be extremely beneficial on the Web fueling successful paid search campaigns to capture new customers. Unit best-sellers often are worth building keyword search campaigns around. Unit best-sellers have great potential for private labeling success; as premiums in prospecting campaigns; and for identifying a product category ripe for expansion.
Top Gross Margin

The third type of best-seller, and the one often overlooked in routine sales analyses, is the product that brings in the greatest gross profit margin. You may only sell a few of these items, but they’re typically unique products that can’t easily be found at competitors’ Web sites or catalogs. Your merchants have taken a risk here and are testing new product ideas and price points in an effort to expand product offers and to capture a bigger portion of the customer’s pocketbook.

Whether your company has separate, independent merchandising teams for Web and catalog or has a single executive managing both, the best-seller analysis from the two sales venues can help grow each business. The analysis provides product information and sales history data from real customers who already consider your company a trusted merchant.