fbpx As a small business owner, you care about running a business that you’re passionate about. But you also care about keeping the door open for your customers. One of the number one questions that small business owners face every day is how can they make more money? Am I selling enough? How can I increase sales? Can I decrease inventory costs? The truth is- these questions are all important to address and most likely, you have the data to answer these questions right in front of you! Check out how these three data points can help you make better decisions for your business (and your bottom line). Compare weekly sales data. It’s incredibly important to compare your store’s sales to what you did last year. If you don’t know what you did last year, how do you know what you should expect to sell or forecast for yourself this year? Pull a report for weekly sales year over year. Once you do that, you’ll be able to see how your store performed last year and determine if your sales are up or down. Know your low-selling items. If you’re hanging on to items that have been in stock for too long, you’re losing money on those items. If inventory isn’t selling, it’s taking up space for inventory that will sell and make you money! Once you are able to identify the products that are sitting on the shelf, you can set up a markdown calendar for your store to ensure you’re moving products out that aren’t making you money, rather than ordering more. Quickly identify recent top-sellers. Keeping your thumb on the pulse of trends is incredibly important when it comes to selling inventory. Know which items have been recently flying out the door, so you can quickly restock these items, rather than restock a lower selling item. If you know what people want, you’re able to stock the right product at the right time to ensure you’re selling more to your customers! Just because you haven’t been tracking these data points on a weekly or monthly basis doesn’t mean you can’t start now! Setting the expectation to run reports at a designated time each week can get you in the habit of paying attention to your data and start taking advantage of what it’s telling you. Interested in learning more about using this data for your business? Download our free Increasing Profits Now guide!