Catalog retailer Montgomery Wards wanted to improve its print catalog and Google Shopping results. They’d once been one of the nation’s largest retailers, but outdated product assortment strategies were no longer working for them. They needed a different approach in order to regain momentum and drive incremental profit.

Montgomery Wards turned to AssortmentGURU by IMS for help. They hoped this unique product assortment optimization tool could help them succeed in the competitive online shopping arena, including Google Shopping. As a direct merchant ourselves with decades of proven success, we knew that the same merchandising strategy and data-driven tool that had worked for us could work for them. We set out to make their product team’s job easier, and take profit and growth to new heights. 

The Challenge

The challenges Montgomery Wards faced are common to many multi-title catalog mailers. From our experience, we know that Google Shopping is set up to achieve a set return on ad spend across a company’s entire product offering. 

However, it doesn’t maximize each product’s sales and profit’s potential. While the aggregate return on ad spend (ROAS) will hit your Google Shopping goals, there are issues within the product mix. Some products get over-marketed. Others get under-marketed. 

Without a powerful merchandising assortment tool like AssortmentGURU, you’ll miss the data-driven insights you need to understand what’s really going on, and you’ll fall short of the revenue and profit you could really achieve. Assortment GURU by IMS can help overcome these challenges.

Our Insights

Once companies start using AssortmentGURU they experience these three key benefits:

• Make better product decisions faster
• Drive profitable growth (in 33% less time than if not using the tool)
• Allow product leaders to return to what they do best (product development)

Our Approach

Using a data-driven, product assortment optimization tool such as Assortment GURU helps companies that, just like Montgomery Ward, want to offer a seamless shopping experience for customers across print catalog, e-commerce and Google Shopping. Certain product segments are pinpointed based on their performance—not just how they do as a category.

Numbers don’t lie. With the data at their fingertips to identify high-performing products, Montgomery Ward could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their ad spend. As for the worst-performing products, ad spend went down, as it should. On the flipside, placing the right products into the right positioning allowed the company to realize more profits. 

Results

Using AssortmentGURU allowed Montgomery Ward to achieve a 2.6x increase in pull. The positive results for this combination of dollars earned, plus response or conversion rate, allowed them to offset the investment with a much greater return in sales. 

Adopting this technique, Montgomery Ward was soon able to refine how they structured their Google Shopping feeds. This shone a new spotlight on each product, because they were able to send Google Shopping multiple product feeds and not just one. Revenue results improved practically overnight and gave some products exposure they’d never had before—but deserved and needed. Now they were able to stop overspending on products that were going to be flops, or underspending on “hidden” top sellers. 

Conclusion

Using AssortmentGURU across both print catalog and online drove significantly greater revenue and incremental profit for Montgomery Ward. We also learned that what worked for print-catalog merchandising can also work for online retailers.

Montgomery Ward was so pleased with the results of using AssortmentGURU that they still use the tool for their Google Shopping today. IMS has seen this same level of satisfaction with other merchandising teams who are using AssortmentGURU to make product decisions that inform, for example, which hero image to feature on their website, the products to showcase online, and items to splash onto email campaigns. Choices they had to make on a daily basis became easier using this newfound data. 

“Once product leaders see how well AssortmentGURU can help them get to better merchandising decisions more quickly, they use it across the board,” says AssortmentGURU developer Danny Bero. “If they’re determining product assortment for catalog mailings, they’re utilizing AssortmentGURU. If they’re marketing online, they’re utilizing AssortmentGURU. It’s become a powerful, data-driven tool for omnichannel merchants to drive profitable growth.