Sales Metrics 101: Analyzing Your Way to Business Growth

Meghan Krause | June 8, 2023

Today, we're going to talk about one of the most important aspects of running a successful business: analyzing your sales metrics. By digging into your sales data, you can gain valuable insights into which products are most popular, which inventory is needed, seasonality, and more.

Why Analyzing Sales Metrics is Important

Analyzing your revenue drivers is essential to understanding the performance of your business. By analyzing your sales data, you can identify which products are selling well and which are not. This information can help you make decisions about which products to stock, which to promote, and which to discontinue. You can also use sales data to identify trends and patterns in your business, such as seasonality or changes in customer behavior. This information can help you adjust your business practices to better meet the needs of your customers.

How to Export Sales Data from Your POS or Invoicing System

Exporting sales data from your POS or invoicing system is relatively simple. Most systems have an online reporting feature that allows you to generate reports based on specific criteria. To export your sales data, simply select the date range and other criteria you want to include in your report, and then export the report to a CSV or Excel file.

Fields you'll want to export include:

Date
Product Name
Product Category (if applicable)
Quantity Sold
Unit Price
Discounts (if applicable)
Total ($)
Customer identifier (if applicable)
Bonus: Sales Person

Customer identifiers can take many forms, including names, emails, phone numbers, loyalty numbers, or even the last four digits of their credit card. Tracking customer information can help you understand who drives a significant percentage of your sales, who you should market to and how your loyalty programs are performing.

How to Analyze Sales Data

Once you have exported your sales data, it's time to analyze it. There are several metrics you should pay attention to, including:

Total sales: How much revenue your business generated over a specific period of time.
Sales by customer: How much of your revenue comes from different customers.
Sales by product and product category: Which products are selling well and which are not.
Average order value: How much customers are spending on average per order.

Using charts and graphs can help you identify the insights more easily. Look for trends and patterns in your data, such as spikes in sales during certain times of the year or increases in sales of a particular product after a promotion.

Proportions

Whether you're a lover or a hater of the dessert charts, pie and donut charts are a fantastic way to quickly see where large chunks of your sales are coming from.


95% of this company's sales are from just two products. There are five other products making up the last 5%.	54% of this company's revenue comes from just four of their customers. We want to make sure these customers are first to know about new products and always feel the love!

Trends

Trends provide a more comprehensive view of the situation than the individual numbers can alone. If you only look at individual numbers, you may miss important patterns and trends that could impact your business.


While the wireless Pro Cam is the top product, it wasn't always. The wireless model has continued to grow each year since introduced while the wired model has stagnated. This is important for future inventory and product investment planning.	We see Q1 is really slow, there's a sharp increase from April through October and a slight dip at the end of Q4. This pattern can help optimize inventory planning to preserve cash flow in the off season while capitalizing on the spikes.

How to Adjust Your Business Practices Based on Your Findings

Once you have analyzed your sales data, it's time to adjust your business practices based on your findings. If you notice that a particular product is selling well, you may want to stock more of that product or promote it more heavily. If you notice that a particular product category is not performing well, you may want to discontinue those products or adjust your pricing strategy. You can also adjust your business practices based on seasonality or changes in customer behavior. For example, if you notice that sales of a particular product tend to increase during the summer months, you may want to bump up inventory leading up but thin it out the rest of the year.

Analyzing your sales metrics is essential to making informed decisions about your business. By exporting your sales data from your POS system, analyzing it, and adjusting your business practices based on your findings, you can drive growth and improve the performance of your business.