The Pareto Rule in Marketing Revisited

22 Pages Posted: 2 Nov 2018 Last revised: 26 Dec 2020

See all articles by Daniel McCarthy

Daniel McCarthy

Emory University - Department of Marketing

Russell S. Winer

New York University (NYU) - Department of Marketing

Date Written: October 10, 2018

Abstract

In a recent paper, Kim, Singh, and Winer (2017) studied the Pareto rule across 22 different CPG categories. The authors found an average Pareto ratio (PR) of .73, meaning that 73% of sales came from the top 20% of customers. In this paper, we use a unique dataset of 339 publicly-traded non-CPG companies to see whether/when the Kim et.al. result holds. We have additional data on these companies, including whether they are product or service companies, whether they sell to customers on a subscription or non-subscription basis, financial and industry information, and summaries of customer purchase behavior. We find that the overall average PR is .67 with product companies having a ratio of .67, and service companies, .66. We find that non-subscription businesses have a PR of .68, substantially higher than that of subscription businesses at .59. We estimate the correlates of PR by industry and other factors. Preliminary results show much higher PRs for profits than sales.

Keywords: Pareto rule, customer concentration, empirical generalization

Suggested Citation

McCarthy, Daniel and Winer, Russell S., The Pareto Rule in Marketing Revisited (October 10, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3264425 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3264425

Daniel McCarthy (Contact Author)

Emory University - Department of Marketing ( email )

Goizueta Business School
1300 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States

Russell S. Winer

New York University (NYU) - Department of Marketing ( email )

Henry Kaufman Ctr
44 W 4 St.
New York, NY
United States
212-998-0540 (Phone)
212-995-4006 (Fax)

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