Five Minute Friday: Know Your Numbers - Do You Have a Traffic Problem or a Sales Problem?

Being a retailer ain't easy. That's why we at the Boutique Hub are going to be coming to you with a new series called Know youw Numbers. We're going to get the facts on what is the most important to drive profit, drive cash in your business and really have you feel in control over your future. Numbers are black and white. It's the one thing we record every day. And we're going to teach you how to make the most of tracking your KPIs and metrics. Let's jump in, let's kick things off with conversion. And here's why conversion is so important. I've always found it to be a really helpful metric and why it matters. Conversion is going to force you to track your traffic every day. Now, conversion is a metric that you have to consistently track day to day and it's going to have you look at your traffic, but it's going to benchmark it against your performance. And I'm going to explain what that means in just a moment. But first, with travel, as retailers, and I'm guilty of it, we are always looking for outside reasons to why our sales are impacted. It's the weather, it's the economy, it's because the moon is in Venus. We could come up with anything to explain a downturn in sales. But I really want to know, hey, is my traffic down or less people coming to my store or visiting my website? So the formula for conversion is pretty simple. You're just going to take your number of transactions that day and divide it by the amount of visitors that visited your store that day. So pro tip, if you are a brick and mortar store, go online and get a traffic counter, put it at your front door and measure it every single day. Now I know this is going to sound crazy. Traffic counters may not be accurate to the exact number, but but it's going to show you those fluctuations day to day and over time it'll even out. So really important that you have a traffic counter. And hey, if you are a website, e commerce store, digital boutique, well then you should be using Google Analytics. That's going to show your conversion track your traffic. You can see all of those metrics right in your analytics dashboard. So very important that you're monitoring this, that you're staying on top of it. And this is going to help answer two really important questions. Do I have a visitation issue? Are less people walking into my doors? Are less people visiting my website? Is that why my sales are down? Because I just have less people coming in? Or is it a performance issue. And here's what I mean by that. If your traffic numbers are staying consistent, then what's happening when that person is walking into your store? Are you having a harder time turning them into a paying customer? Maybe your sales and service isn't at the level right. Maybe you have to step up your training. Hey, maybe if they're coming to your website, they're having a hard time navigating to the products that they want. Or maybe when they walk in your store, they're just not finding products that resonate with them. So we want to know, is traffic the issue or is it the performance once they walk into our store? And that's going to kind of indicate where you need to respond. Okay, Boutique Hub members, you have a really important tool. It's right in the training library. It's called the Traffic Formula. It's going to help you track how much traffic do I need based on my conversion rate to really drive sales and reach my goals. It's an incredible tool. It's right in the training library. I really encourage you to go check it out. I'm here if you need help using it. And if you're not a member, this is the type of material that you have access to that's going to help you grow and scale your business. So if you're not a member, we're going to put the link down there. Please join our community and let's get stronger together and we're going to know our numbers.

That's it for five minute Friday, you guys. I hope you found some quick, actionable steps you can put into play in your business right away. As always, if you're not yet a member of the Boutique Hub, I would love to personally invite you to join us. It's where all of the daily conversations happen. The up to date all what is working now in the industry conversations, the latest trainings, trend reports, discounts, resources and of course access to thousands of wholesale brands that you also know and love. So please take a minute, follow the link in the show notes and we would love to invite you to join us inside of the Boutique Hub.