Three ways to analyse your sales & develop new product ideas

Hey guys and welcome back to episode 7 where we discuss three ways to analyse your sales and develop new product ideas from your current range. Before we dive in I wanted to share a lovely review the podcast has had on iTunes from Laura from Louy Magroos:

“Really enjoying listening to this podcast, Joanne has a really great way of explaining and inspiring. I am particularly loving the future trends being explained and built on, I listen whilst I’m at my workbench and it always sparks new ideas.”

Thanks so much Laura – that really made my day and I love that I can be there while you work too! And thanks to everyone else who has left a lovely review or comment – it really means so much to know that I’ve got your support and the content is what you want to hear.

So for today’s episode, we’re going to discuss how to analyse your sales as well as creating new product ideas from your current range. You can find show notes for the episode below and listen in on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify.

First off let’s discuss three different ways you can analyse your sales to get the best information out of your data.

Analyse your sales – Range review

Completing a range review of all your products can show you what categories and subcategories are bringing in the majority of your sales. It’ll also highlight what areas are growing. This will show what your customers love to buy from you, and in turn means you can develop more products in these categories that they already love!

First off divide your products into categories and subcategories. For example:

Analyse your sales – Daily rate of sale

Working out your daily rate of sale means you can identify what products are performing well, regardless of the time they’ve been live. For example you may have a best seller has made a lot of money for you business, but if that’s over a five year period then maybe the sales are slowing. In turn you’ll be able to see new products that are already selling well, even if they haven’t been live for long.

Work out your daily rate of sale for each product by dividing the total sales between the number of days it’s been live. This will give you an indication of best sellers that have plateaued or new products that are becoming best sellers.

For example:

Drop earrings have been live for 912 days (2.5 years) and have made £410,000.
Calculation = £410,000 / 912
The daily rate of sale would be £499.

Chandelier earrings have been live for 55 days and have made £41,500.
Calculation = £41,50 / 55
The daily rate of sale would be £754.

As you can see the chandelier earrings are currently outperforming the drop earrings, even though they haven’t brought in as much money, they are currently making 51% more.

From this see if you can identify what’s different from the new products that are performing well and apply it to new products. Maybe it’s the style, material, colour or trend?

Analyse your sales – Conversion

Conversion is a great metric to use to see how many shoppers are seeing your product and then go on to buy it. This means that even if a product has lower sales but if it has lower page views it may mean the conversion is high, as when customers do get to the page they’re more likely to buy.

You work out conversion by dividing the number of checkouts your product has had by the number of page views.

Side note:

Page views can be just page views (the total number of page views a product has had from multiple uses) vs unique page views (if one customer views your product page multiple times during one session, it will just be counted as one unique view, instead of 5 page views).

Decide on what types of page views you’ll use and stick to it so as not to confuse data down the line!

So say your product has had 543 page views and 22 checkouts.

Your calculation would be 22 / 543 = 0.040 x 100 for a percentage = 4.05%

On average a 2 – 3% conversion is good by industry standard.

So that’s three ways to analyse your sales and get new product ideas and categories you can expand into.

Develop new product ideas

I also wanted to talk to you about thinking creatively and in a different way about your current range without using data.

So let’s look at your range and apply the following ways of thinking:

Can you put the same designs on new products e.g. Could you apply your print designs onto t-shirts, stationery or storage?

Think about how you can make it personal. So this could be personalised with a name, initial or hidden meaning. Or just make it personal by focusing on a popular theme such as different sports, travel or broad personalisations such as Mum

Look back at the custom requests you’ve had – that you’ve either made as a one-off or said you couldn’t do at the time. Is there any potential here? Your customers are already asking for it!

Change the colour of your products to on-trend colours – think how millennial pink and ultra violet have been popular the past year.

Could you update the material so if you make something in wood, could you make it in leather or resin?

Add texture to your product. This is big as we live in such a digital, flat screen society and tactility is a great trend to tap into.

If you make food or something that is scented could you add a new flavour or smell that’s trending or seasonal – maybe something for Christmas or Easter?

How about turning it’s on its head and reversing it. So If you make vases could you turn them into pen pots or wall mount them?

So that’s it for today’s episode. I hope the details on analysing your sales and just thinking differently about your current range helps you.

If you’d like 121 guidance and personalised advice on your product development then do get in touch with me as it would be fantastic to hear from you. I create bespoke product development ideas that are personalised just for your business. Plus I hand everything over to you in a phone call or meeting where we chat everything through in detail and get to throw more ideas into the mix for you to use and develop. My clients say this is one of the best parts working together and I love it too and it’s so great to connect with you further.

Sending inspiration to extol your curiosity today and every day!