Monthly Sales Cycle?

[olimits7]

Hi,

I was just wondering, what have your best/worst monthly sales cycles been lately?

January: Good
February: Good
March: Good
April: Average
May: Average
June: Worst
July: Worst
August: Better
September: Good
October: Best
November: Best
December: Good

Also, does anyone know of any website/articles that talks about online shopping sales cycles? I tried looking online but I couldn't find anything worth reading.

Thank you,

olimits7

[dpd1]

In general, I'd say about the same as you. Though I don't even really bother to break it down to months, because months can often differ. But in general... End of year good, until the holidays... then beginning of the year good. Summer... Varying levels of decreased sales. Unfortunately this season has been a real drag this year. Not really sure why. My theory is that some people might finally be getting out and traveling more, and that doesn't really go with my niche. But I think beginning of year might correlate with tax returns and going back to school, and end of year is obviously holiday stuff and sales seasons.

[Kendo]

I don't see how this is still possible but check this out...

I used to manage a business in the real world and on the back of my office I door kept a sales graph of monthly sales for past years. Every year was the same and there was nothing that I could do about it. It didn't matter if I advertised or not because the sales graph was always the same shape, ie: same highs and same holes. We had new clients coming in from phone directory advertising as well as repeat customers. However I did notice that many regular clients spent more with us at the same time each year so they too could be plotted.

My conclusion was that in the end it comes down to personality. But why is that graph still the same after trading online for more than a decade where no-one actually meets you?

I'm selling from web pages that were written/edited at all different times of the year, so why is March - May still so bad every year that they don't pay the rent?

[buckworks]

Some sectors have steady sales all year, while others have pronounced ups and downs.

My client's annual sales cycles have such regular variations that their multi-year sales chart looks like it's monitoring heartbeats or something.

[JackieBlue]

My experience is that most businesses sales have a seasonal component to them. With some basic statistics you can determine your seasonality factors and trend as well as isolate irregularities that you can then research to determine the cause. Generally, my niche follows a typical retail cycle with November to March generally the highest sale months and drops starting in May until September. We may still have 20% growth in those months after seasonally adjusting. We generally use a basic regression analysis based on a rolling 12 month figure. I like to use 3 years of data if available. Almost all the non seasonal changes I can attribute to product fads, new products we added, and marketing changes.

[RhinoFish]

yep, many of our clients look like yours, but not all.

one client sells life educational materials, new years resolutions and cold weather keeping people inside makes their January ROCK! i mean green glowing nuclear good!

another sells mostly to small boutique stores, their Feb rots like a stinking dog - their buyers summer season runs into fall and then into winter - but their spring, doesn't ever get sprung. as their PPC guys, we want to jump off their sales graph's virtual cliff in Feb. but it passes each year... like a giant kidney stone.

[dpd1]

Yeah, obviously it would depend greatly on the product. A guy who sells skis obviously isn't going to have the same pattern as a guy who sells swimsuits. But for me as well, nothing I've done ever really seems to make any significant difference one way or the other when it comes to trying to control the ebb and flow, so I've just tried not to stress over it. Perfect example... Some people not long ago were giving me a little crap, saying that I was making a huge mistake by not having as much contact info as possible on my site, and I was probably losing sales. So I added it at the beginning of the year. So now this year is the first year ever where my gross is not beating last years gross. LOL