Sales have tanked, and life is over.
Calm down - here’s what to look for.
Principle: Investigation kills panic
No matter what you’re working on - what app you’re trying to build, what landing page you’re trying to optimize - if sales drop, STOP. Somewhere there’s an issue you can fix.
Most sales slumps are downstream of 3 things:
Traffic
Conversion rate
AOV
And you’re a pro - you know how to manipulate these factors for your gain.
Tactics
You should be tracking these 3 core metrics religiously (once a week like the ecomm sabbath). Here’s what to do:
Get a spreadsheet and manually type in these numbers once a week, without fail
Compare October ‘25 to October ‘24. Stop comparing to last month - it’s useless.
zoom out to see quarter and year growth/decline periodically to spot trends
Identify the weak points (where it’s declined YoY, or simply not grown as quickly as expected), and make a plan.
If it’s traffic, you can control it with ad spend and better ad and organic creation.
If it’s conversion rate, you need to keep working on that landing page.
If it’s AOV, either implement a new up/cross sell or give yourself a break for not having the hottest new product this year when you did last year. Then highlight higher-margin products on your site.
Habits
Implement an ecomm sabbath: one day a week where you manually enter your 3 core metrics into a running spreadsheet.
At worst, you’ll understand why your sales are dipping and feel empowered instead of depressed. And at best this practice will help you spot a sales dip before it happens so you can cut it off at the pass.
God speed,
Mike
Today’s inspiration: Do This When Your Sales Are Down