Analyse sales by best sellers is a great way to identify new product growth areas and develop your product range. So today on the podcast I’m going to share how to analyse your sales and review your highest and lowest sales by total product sales and units.
If you do this already then great! I would recommend still listening in on how to deep dive into this form of sales analysis and what questions to ask to help your product development even further.
Even if maths isn’t your thing then you can still easily learn how to analyse your data. Plus you can make it creative by getting curious and working out what’s impacting your sales.
Best sellers by product sales
Download your product sales by sales/revenue. Apply a filter on all the columns in Excel and then sort your products by ‘ascending’ in the revenue tab to find your best selling products by the amount of money they have made.
Best sellers by units
Download your product sales by units. Apply a filter on all the columns in Excel and then sort your products by ‘ascending’ in the units tab to find your best selling products by the number of units they have sold.
It’s important to look at your data by both total product sales and units so you can spot any differences. If you have a wide range of price points then your higher-priced items may bring in more money but you may sell more units of your lower priced items.
For both of these reports decide on how often you’ll download your sales and track them in a way that works for your business. If your sales are high then I would recommend weekly, otherwise monthly or quarterly would work.
If you have more than a year’s worth of sales then you can start to compare your revenue and unit sales year on year (YoY) to see if your best selling products are consistent or if there has been a change over time.
Compare your YoY sales by downloading the previous year’s sales/units and placing it next to the appropriate product. Easily see the increase or decrease YoY by turning the difference into a percentage.
You can do this with the following calculation:
New number (minus) original number (divided by) original number (multiply by) 100
For example:
12,027 – 3,040 / 3,040 = 2.956 x 100 = 295.62% increase
A decrease in sales/units sold would come out as a negative (e.g. -79%)
Questions to ask yourself while you’re analysing your best sellers:
- Is there a difference between your best sellers by sales and units?
- If so, what are the contributing factors for this. E.g. it could be a difference in price points or products that are normally bought in bulk.
- What price points are your best sellers?
- Is this a contributing factor to their success?
- What product categories sell the best for you?
- Can you develop more products in these best selling categories?
- Do some products peak during certain times of the year?
- When do your overall sales peak throughout the year?
- E.g. Christmas, summer or wedding season.
- Are your sales increasing or declining?
Found this post on how to analyse sales by best sellers useful? I’ve just released a new digital download which includes four different ways to analyse your sales and work out how to use this data to inform your product development process. Meaning you’ll take what’s already working and learn how to create even more products that will appeal to your customers!
It’s a PDF download that covers how to do this and questions to ask yourself during the process. It covers:
- Best sellers
- Conversion
- Daily rate of sale
- Range review
Meaning you’ll also be able to track sales patterns to identify your key sales periods to know when you’re likely to be busy and to plan accordingly.
Plus you’ll get an Excel spreadsheet with the columns and formulas ready set up for you to input your data and start analysing your sales in each of these four ways!
Download the How to Analyse Your Sales in Four Different Ways PDF and spreadsheet now!
If you found this episode on how to analyse sales by best sellers useful then I’d love it if you could share it with another business friend who would find it useful. Or share it on Instagram @arnoldandbird. I always love seeing your shares and where you are listening!
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