August Ends on a Positive Note and September is Off To a Great Start

Although July and the early part of August were slow and lacklustre, our sales performance has picked up considerably in the last half of August and has held firm to today - September 5. We have been reaching our daily goal of $100 sales per day for September so far, and as of August 22, we started tracking the names of the actual customers as well as the date on which they became customers. The subject of this post is a detailed look at the sales for the period August 22 - September 2, 2016 - an 11 day period.

Here is what the statistics reveal:

Total sales from August 22-September 2: $814.12 - so approximately $74.01 per day.

Total number of stamps sold: 97

Average sale: $8.39 -so mostly less expensive stamps.

Total number of unique customers: 39

Total number of completely new customers: 18

Total number of returning customers: 21

Breakdown of returning customers:

•  1 customer first did business with us in September 2015 - spent $3
• 1 customer first did business with us in October 2015 - spent $12.85
• 1 customer first did business with us in November 2015 - spent $14.85
• 1 customer first did business with us in December 2015 - spent $13.35
• 2 customers first did business with us in January 2016 - spent $10.45
• 2 customers first did business with us in February 2016 - spent $7.20
• 3 customers first did business with us in May 2016 - spent $189.39
• 3 customers first did business with us in June 2016 - spent $110.55
• 1 customer first did business with us in July 2016 - spent $117.60
• 6 customers first did business with us in August 2016 - spent $24.33

So all told, these 18 returning customers spent $503.57 out of the total of $814.12, which translates into 61.8% of the sales for that 11 day period. Most of these repeat sales have come from customers that we first did business with in May, June and July. The earlier customers from this group have spent the most, which is significant, as none of these customers had spent very much before. We have continued to attract sales from customers that we first did business with earlier in 2015, through none of these have spent much. Initially, that suggests the possibility that customers eventually spend less and less after they have peaked. However, after looking at specifically who these customers are, we can rule that out, as none of these returning customers have ever been big spenders. There could be a variety of reasons for this, which could include budget considerations and the specialized focus of the customer in their collecting. It would appear that the most plausible explanation is that many of these earlier customers are older and on limited collecting budgets. We attracted these customers when we had only a very limited range of earlier stamps posted. Now, with over 5,400 items running in the store we are attracting a broader and broader range of customers, including those who are just starting their collections. However, the fact that these collectors who are on a budget are coming back is very encouraging.  

We also obtained our third confirmed customer from social media in this period as well, in addition to three different comments coming from people who have viewed the blog. This development is most exciting because up until now, we have had almost no comments on our posts. Now we are beginning to see regular engagement from our readers, which is really the first step in our content being shared and some of the readers deciding to view our listings and actually purchase some stamps. 

It will be interesting to see what emerges over the next three weeks, once we have a full month of good data to analyze.