Sales Analysis
Whether you’re an internationally-recognized corporation or a small business out of your house, you’ll likely have some products that sell incredibly well and others that you can’t give away.
It’s generally pretty obvious to tell the difference;
You have inventory piling up of a certain product, and for others, you have a backlog of orders to fill.
Managing these products and their sales is stressful. From the sales figures to the various investments you need to make in order to ship or promote those products, often times there is so much information to process that you’ll end up simply keeping a low-performing product, which digs the hole even deeper.
Don’t worry, there’s a better way to analyze your sales data and gain insights to adjust your business’s inventory for maximum profit. That’s where Glenmont’s sales analysis services come into play.
Using sales analysis to your advantage
Sales analysis refers to the examination of sales reports to see the status of your products and promotions.
You’ll review reports of what sold well, what is failing to sell, what could be doing better and the optimal product inventory you should keep to maximize your space and finances.
It’s vital to compare these figures with company goals for a high-level view of how well you’re doing as a business and what areas need to be improved.
Sales analysis relies on these key components:
Comparing periods
A sales analysis can be used to compare different time periods. You might want to compare your sales figures from this summer to last, or you could be looking at how you did year over year for a 3 year period during the holiday season. This ensures a fair and unbiased comparison, but be sure to note special cases and red flags that stand out.
A comparative analysis will tell you a lot about your products and how they sell during certain periods. This can provide your organization with valuable insights on what type of products, and marketing tactics to support it will be most effective.
Competitor sales analysis
For many industries, competitor sales figures will appear in a publicly listed source. Tech companies often list the sales figures for their devices, and data collection companies have their own tools and methods to calculate sale numbers.
Using these statistics you’ve gathered, you can then perform a sales analysis that also takes into account competitors. Look at how much they’re selling, where they’re selling and how those figures compare to yours.
Context for sales analysis
Raw values are difficult to judge since there may be other factors at play that are out of your control or don’t show the full picture. For instance, if a certain ingredient in a food product that you offer is deemed dangerous due to an outbreak of an illness, even if it wasn’t your product directly, sales are going to drop drastically.
On the flipside, you can also capitalize on a failure on behalf of your competitor. If your rival recently underwent a public scandal in the media, you can play off of that and use it to your advantage. Focus on why your product or service is great and why you won’t have the same problem that your competitor had.
Break-even sales analysis
A break-even analysis is an examination of the number of sales you’ll need to ensure that your company doesn’t lose money on a certain product. It shows additional statistics on how the break-even point will change based on variable expenses and other factors that might be in or out of your control.
Breaking even is important because it allows you to continue working even if a product fails or doesn’t meet your standards or a target goal.
The importance of sales analysis
Sales analysis services will allow you to identify top and bottom performers and adjust your sales, production, and marketing approaches as needed. Double down on the top performers and eliminate the stragglers.
It takes money to make money. If you’re investing your money on poor quality items that won’t make it to market or aren’t popular in your industry, performing a sales analysis will help point out those errors with data-driven evidence.
A sales analysis should be shared with various stakeholders and decision-makers throughout your company. This will give them the tools they need to understand your products and empower them to suggest new ideas that will lead to better sales.
If you want to learn more about our sales analysis services, feel free to contact us and get in touch with a Glenmont consultant.