Fuck. I wish my company could do this shit. Research, testing, and analysis never, ever, ever happens.
I made the mistake of once asking "do we have any solid data on how many sales get to the mockup stage and then die between mockups & POs?" The CEO looked at me like I was insane. Data? What?
Fuck yes data. If you know for certain that 100% of orders die because of budget, maybe we should lay out budget and restraints before mockups so that the art team doesn't do 120 manhours putting together a product that the company has no intention of every doing a full run of.