Web Buyers are Changing the Catalog World!

Jim CooganCatalog Marketing Economics

jcoogan@earthlink.net505-986-9902

1328 Bishops Lodge RoadSanta Fe, New Mexico 87506

Web buying is the biggest trend to hit the industry in decades. Some catalogs see over 50% of their orders

placed on the web.

If you don’t understand web buyers, your response rates will decay. Period.

Some web buyers can be mailed. Some can’t. Trick is knowing who to mail and who not to mail.

Biggest trend in catalog circulation is the influx of web buyers. Two kinds of web buyers -- catalog driven

and pure web buyers. These two kinds of web buyers respond very

differently to catalog mailings. Catalog driven web buyers respond like

traditional catalog buyers. Pure web respond very differently than

traditional catalog buyers.

How do you know if your buyer file is healthy?

How do you know the buyer file is healthy? Mailing 1,000,000 web buyers @

$2.00/catalog mailed. Breakeven is $1.00/catalog mailed.

Segment Circulation $/Catalog Total Sales

Total 1,000,000 $2.00 $2,000,000

Looks Healthy.

Segmenting your web buyers shows that your circulation is not healthy.

Segments Circulation $/book SalesCatalog drivenWeb buyers 400,000 $3.85 $1,540,000

Pure Web buyers 600,000 $.77 $460,000

60% of the circulation is well below breakeven!Breakeven is $1.00/catalog

Catalog circulation managers need good data to make decisions. Traditional catalogers are wasting

circulation! Pure web companies need to understand web

buyers. Pure web merchants are leaving sales on

the table! Pure Web merchants need reorders.

Catalogs are great for getting reorders. The web is not good at driving demand.

Web buyers are different than traditional mail order buyers.

They order on the web. They come to you without source codes. Web buying is really a different shopping

experience. Catalogs sell products. The web takes

orders. Catalogs create demand and work well

when consumers are relaxing on the couch or reading in bed.

How are web buyers different?

Some web demand is created by catalogs and the web is simply where the order is placed.

Some web demand is pure web demand --natural search, paid search, price comparison engines, affiliates, etc.

Some web buyers respond to follow-up catalogs, direct mail or e-mails and are truly multichannel buyers.

Some web buyers are very unresponsive to “snail mail.”

The key requirement to manage your web buyers is to segment buyers by channel.

Expand traditional segmentation from RFM (recency / frequency / monetary) to RFM & C. You must segment your buyers by Channel.

Segment the web channel into pure web catalog generated web multichannel buyers.

It’s not enough to just segment web buyers from call center buyers.

Segment pure web buyers by original source. Price comparison engine buyers aren’t going to

be very loyal to your company. They are price shoppers first and brand shoppers second and aren’t loyal to your store.

How are web buyers different?

Web buyers will buy overwhelmingly using the web! They will reorder on the web so if you don’t

capture key codes, you will underreport results. You’ll miss 80% or more or the sales from a web segment!

“Pure Web” buyers may be very unresponsive to catalogs or direct mail so your contact strategy may be much different.

Your merchandise mix to web buyers may be very different. Always look at the product winners (best 25 products) by channel to see where your web buyers can lead you in terms of merchandise.

Cooperative Database Tactics toManage Web Buyers

Optimize your web buyers. Segment catalog-driven web versus pure web

and optimize them to find buyers to not mail!

Optimize Your Web Buyers

Segment Circulation $/book Strategy

Catalog Generated Web Buyers

Opto Great 300,000 $5.00/book mail more

Opto Good 50,000 $1.40/book mail the sameOpto Poor 50,000 $.80/book suppress

Pure Web Buyers

Opto Great 100,000 $3.00/book mail moreOpto Good 300,000 $1.20/book mail lessOpto Poor 200,000 $.45/book suppress

Segment Index Months Rec 12 Month Partic 12 Month Trans 12 Month Dollars

A          

B 1 26.2923 0.649 0.8424 $97.09

C 5 14.56 1.2333 1.641 $206.61

D 8 9.3279 1.7988 2.5402 $315.03

E 19 6.7795 2.3572 3.4913 $434.93

F 28 5.2999 2.9988 4.5238 $534.67

G 42 4.4416 3.5093 5.4311 $660.13

H 57 3.6665 4.09 6.2977 $748.85

I 68 3.3207 4.6426 7.3141 $887.05

J 74 3.004 5.2684 8.3484 $1,012.79

K 82 2.5717 5.9747 9.54 $1,148.89

L 94 2.3694 6.8048 10.8631 $1,317.01

M 102 2.2243 7.634 12.0535 $1,494.57

N 113 2.0459 8.6721 14.0531 $1,733.78

O 122 2.3389 9.2263 14.6548 $1,833.99

P 134 2.1479 10.4616 16.6276 $2,184.58

Q 148 1.7857 12.0319 19.2269 $2,373.98

R 153 1.8673 12.8214 20.2918 $2,454.70

S 168 1.8138 14.4137 22.8926 $2,544.17

T 196 1.6184 16.3151 26.1441 $2,630.84

U 339 1.1559 22.6514 36.7909 $3,242.45

V          

Which web buyers do you optimize?

Price comparison shoppers, search engine buyers. Pure web buyers (all the web-driven source codes) 1x web buyers Low-ticket web buyers Aging house file buyers Web catalog requests Holiday buyers Weak merchandise category buyers

How do you use optimization?

Drop the web buyers who show little or no mail order. Find your breakeven points in the optimization and

suppress those buyers below breakeven. Change your contact frequency for web versus non-

web. Segment your web buyers and requests before the

optimization; you’ll get better breakdown between profitable and poor responding segments.

Contact the poor performing segments less with catalogs and more with e-mails.

Consider solos, e-mails and postcards to your low LTV buyers.

Always segment Pure Web versus Catalog Driven Web Buyers.

Measuring response without source codes isn’t easy. Without Matchbacks, it may be impossible.

Is your circulation plan healthy when you don’t capture source codes on web orders?

Segment Circulation $/Book0-3m catalog orders 50,000 $4.00/catalog profit0-3m web orders 25,000 $.65/catalog loss4-6m catalog orders 35,000 $3.25/catalog profit4-6m web orders 12,000 $.48/catalog loss

What are the true responses after matchback?

Segment Circulation $/Book0-3m catalog orders 50,000 $4.00/catalog profit0-3m web orders 25,000 $2.27/catalog profit4-6m catalog orders 35,000 $3.25/catalog profit4-6m web orders 12,000 $1.68/catalog profit

How do you segment the web buyers?

If you are doing matchbacks, you can segment the “pure web” buyers by default. All the buyers who don’t match your mail file can be “pure web” buyers.

Segment by key code. Flag using “pure web” source codes.

Capture source codes every way you can. Capturing original source codes is vital.

Are Web buyers buying because they got a catalog?

Are Web buyers buying because they got a catalog?

Always run a mail versus no-mail test. Measure the incremental sales from receiving

a catalog. 20,000 web buyers get a catalog. 20,000

web buyers get no mailing. Incremental sales are a key metric.

Model your web buyers at the co-op databases. If you model your pure web buyers, you’ll

understand how they are different than your traditional catalog buyers.

You may find incremental prospecting list universes. If the web buyers are different, you’ll find fresh prospecting name models and list universes.

Tactics for Web Buyers

Change the mix of contacts and send web buyers more e-mails and less traditional mail.

Segment 1x “tryers” from 2x+ “buyers.” One time web buyers may be a huge profit drain. Optimize or reactivate them.

Segment low ticket web buyers. If your lowest dollar segmentation is now $0-$50, divide that into $0-$25 and $26-$50 and measure those low ticket orders. Low ticket web orders are another profit drain.

Suppress holiday web buyers during the non-holiday season. Segment your buyers into November & December holiday buyers so you can read your holiday buyers.

Holiday buying for web buyers starts later and later every year. Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving so don’t expect to drive it with an October in-home date mailing. Mail your best web buyers to arrive the week of Thanksgiving. Give them e-mail blasts in early December.

More Tactics for Mailing Web Buyers

Web buyers are promotion driven. Give them ink-jet messages with promotional offers.

Web buyers love Clearance, Overstock and Closeout. Drive them to those landing pages using your catalogs.

Consider mailing fewer catalog pages to web buyers.

Converting Web Catalog Requests: The rules have changed!

Do send the catalog immediately. First class mail or expedited delivery (Mail Group or DHL).

Send a thank you e-mail within an hour of getting the request!

Give them a promotional deal to order with the first e-mail. “Convert them at birth.”

Send a stream of follow-up e-mails. Don’t hope you can mail a web request more than one or

two catalogs before they fall below breakeven. Optimize your requests at a co-op database and dump

the tire kickers. Segment by reader service, web request, phone-in

request. Convert them in a day or a week. You don’t have 3

months to convert them anymore.

Key Statistics You Must Measure

Segment by channel. RFM & C.

Segment by “pure web” and “catalog-generated web.”

Measure sales per catalog or sales per piece mailed with matchbacks.

New Metrics for Managing Web Buyers

Force your organization to be channel agnostic. Measure on-line and traditional direct mail using same financial measurements -- breakeven and cost per order.

Measure total sales coming from each channel. Measure channel shift.

Measure new-to-file names by channel. Where are your new customers coming from?

Keys To Managing Web Buyers

Segment by channel

Use Matchbacks to get true results

Optimize your web buyers at the coop databases

Measure the incremental sales from mailing web buyers.