Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData

Entry Points Into The Brand

A quarter century ago, our Nordstrom stores were designed to have Cosmetics near the in-mall entry to our store. Nothing like having fragrance constantly pumped into the mall to attract attention.

Of course, having Cosmetics near the in-mall entry door meant we attracted a lot of new customers ... Cosmetics customers.

And that was a good thing! Why? Because our analytics indicated that a new Cosmetics buyer would quickly cross-shop into other categories ... especially Women's Footwear, located right next to Cosmetics. From there the customer willingly cross-shopped into Women's Apparel and Accessories. Now we had a four-category customer ... our analytics indicated that a customer buying four times ... once from each of four categories ... was more valuable than a four-time buyer within just one category.

In other words, the success of the customer was pre-built into the design of the store.

What is pre-built into the success of the Macy's ecommerce customer?

A generation later and we've abandoned the concept of pre-building customer success into our designs.

For instance, here's a popular Shopify store.

Surely somebody at Kith understands the merchandise that brings in high-value new customers.

Right?

Surely you understand the "entry points" into your ecommerce store that generate high-value new customers.

Right?

Your Questions

Send me your questions (kevinh@minethatdata.com) and I'll dedicate a post to answering the questions y'all submit.

Think of it like free consulting - except all of our readers benefit.

Fire away! I'll accept questions through the end of day 3/11/2026.

Multiple-Division Buyers

In a recent query, I used a logistic regression equation to measure multiple-division buyers. Are these buyers more likely to purchase again compared to other buyers?

0-12 Month One Time Buyers = +27% more likely to purchase again.
0-12 Month Two Time Buyers = +10% more likely to purchase again.
0-12 Month 3x+ Buyers = +3% more likely to purchase again.

In other words, each incremental division purchased from adds 27% / 10% / 3% to the probability of a customer buying again in the next year. If a three-time-plus buyer previously purchased from four divisions instead of one, the customer would have a 3%*3 = 9% greater chance of buying again in the future.

So yeah, cross-shopping your customers matters - especially among first-time buyers.

Customer-Based Merchandise Assortments

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but your customers don't universally love everything you sell.

Every customer has a favorite merchandise division/department/category. This "favorite" division/department/category dictates what you should show the customer in the future.

Example: A Women's Apparel customer (favorite historical division) will spend 48% of future demand on Women's Apparel (your mileage will vary). The second-highest division generates just 12% of future demand, the third-highest division generates just 8% of future demand. This customer should see Women's Apparel, obviously. The marketer needs to be disciplined with this customer.

Example: A Home customer (favorite historical division) will spend 8% of future demand on Home merchandise, with three divisions/departments/categories showing significantly higher future shares of merchandise purchased. Guess what? This customer needs to be cross-shopped. The marketer can be creative with this customer.

Each customer essentially warrants a customer-based merchandise assortment.

Do you think about your customers in this manner?

American Top 40

No, not the Ryan Seacrest version in 2026. I'm talking about the Casey Kasem version from the 1970s and early 1980s.

You can hear the old reruns on the 70s channel on SiriusXM.

In my case, I could hear the show from 3pm - 7pm on Sunday afternoon on WQTC, and if I missed anything I could hear it again from 6pm - 10pm on Sunday evening on WIXX in Green Bay.

I once told a client that they should have a Top 40 list for their best forty items, promoted via email marketing. Make it a weekly event. The Marketing Executive had a typically snide remark.

"Yeah, that's what we want to do. We want to tell our competition what our best selling items are."

Of course, this company sent a pair of clearance/liquidation emails a week. The Marketing Lemonhead had no issue whatsoever telling the competition what didn't work.

If you don't want to communicate your best sellers, create your own opaque criteria like they did on the old American Top 40 Shows.

Average Rank of Sales, Units, and Conversion Rate, for instance.

Start you email week with your Top 40 items according to this criteria. Share it on Instagram, Facebook, you name it. Have one of your merchants feature the top five items on a brief video on TikTok. Have a pregame show on YouTube where two in-house marketing influencers predict what will happen. Have the pregame show hosts read an email, a long-distance dedication of sorts.

I realize none of you will do this.

But somebody should do this.