Numbers don’t lie! But they don’t always tell the full story, either. Let’s look at a few different ways to dissect sales data in order to try to get a (more) complete picture.
Our team tends to approach sales analyses by looking at these data from a few different angles and then triangulate to draw out some conclusions. Examples of a few of those angles might include:
We start with this approach because examining only one of the above – taking a narrower lens – might lead to blind spots in the data, and ultimately less-informed decisions.
Example: If you were to look only at performance by flower, you might see that dahlias were your top-selling crop. This might lead you to plant more dahlias… but if you were to consider your sales by flower, and then look at your sales by color, you might see that green was your number two selling color – that might suggest an opportunity in foliage that you may have missed had you only looked at top-selling genera or cultivars.
From there, we’d slice it a bit further; we would look at all of these analyses in a few different ways to try to get a fuller picture:
Next, we encourage you to look at your own individual sales analytics on Rooted and compare your data to the broader trends. Where do your sales look similar? Where are there differences, or gaps? Are there opportunities that you may be missing that seem to be taking off in other parts of the country? Read our Year in Review post for more on this.
Whether you are outperforming or underperforming on any of these metrics or lists, the next step is always to ask “why?” Why is this doing well for me? Why is this not selling? We always like to reflect on our own, and then approach some of our trusted buyers to have an open discussion in the off-season to collect feedback.
Assess your own sales! Use the methods above to start sifting through your data.
Consider creating a year-end buyer survey. There are a number of free and low-cost tools for administering these, including Survey Monkey, Qualtrics, Jotform, Google Forms, and others. A few questions you might ask your buyers: product they liked and didn’t like (and why!), what they wish they had more of, what color palettes they may be working with in the season ahead, etc.
Read our 2022 Year in Review post for more details around broader market trends that we saw throughout the season.
Check out our new and improved data & analytics package for 2023! We've released new features for 2023, including robust analytics, buyer segmentation, pricing transparency, and more!