Playing with Numbers to Analyze Your Sales

by Millie
(Portland, Oregon)

With the aid of a simple spreadsheet and grade school math you can produce some really interesting facts about your sales and your income. You can do some sales forecasting too.

My friend and associate set up a couple spread sheets for me so I could visually see where I was at from year to year with regard to # of units sold (in my case stones), # of orders received, and total income received.

These figures were divided as follows:

# of units or pieces divided by total sales = average income of each unit;

# of sales or orders divided by total sales = average income of each order;

Interestingly I found from 2009 to 2010 that the average unit dropped by 6 dollars - but the average order increased by 15 dollars.

This gives you the ability to recognize visually what worked and what didn't work in your marketing strategy.

Where you have big peaks you know what helped your sales. For example, a year ago I had a huge peak one month when Rena featured my site. (Thanks again Rena!)

Other ways you can use a spreadsheet is to trace your visitor volume. Using visitor volumes to divide your sales figures can give you a picture of when your marketing efforts worked or paid off. This also gives you a picture of what didn’t work.

For example, when I purchased AdWords my volume went up, sales didn't improve but my bounce rate went through the roof. The clicking in and clicking out doesn't pay the bills.

When I purchased less expensive ads on target market sites, volume increased, bounce rate dropped dramatically, page views increased enormously and my sales went up.

Some tracking sites can give you an enormous amount of information but often times the data will disappear and show only a few months.

If you record the information from those trackers you can form these numerical pictures for years; you will start to see patterns. The patterns will offer you insight into when to increase product, when to advertise, where to advertise, etc.

If you record chronologically and record your dates it is helpful.

I might mention also that as I list each order that comes in and I include a name and address, email address with the numbers. This spread sheet is also a data base that can be used in mail merge programs, snail mail and e-mail as well.

If a customer has additional orders I don't record the address or email, this gives me the ability to spot returning customers and how much they purchased without the extensive reports from the QuickBooks program I use for bookkeeping.

Knowing how many potential buyers have to see your product before you make a sale helps enormously in evaluating your potential business in the future.

You will see a historical fact that will develop from your numbers, such as for every 20 people that look at your product one will buy. (100 views = 5 sales; 1000 views = 50 sales.)

The trick in this system is to record the information consistently and timely so it doesn't become a burden. Good record keeping has many advantages and helps you make good business decisions.

I hope you all have a Great and Prosperous 2011!

Millie \o/
Overstocked with Rocks!