How to Quickly Measure Your Christmas Sales
The holiday season is the most critical sales period for many retail businesses. With the right point of sale (POS) software, you can quickly analyze your Christmas sales trends and product performance to make data-driven decisions for the future.
How to quickly compare
One simple yet powerful profitability analysis compares this year's Christmas sales to the same period last year. Here's how to do it in just a few steps using your POS system's Register reports:
- In your POS system, go to Register Reports
- Select "Sales Comparison for a Given Period."
- Choose the date range for this year's Christmas season (ex., December 1 - December 25)
- Compare it to the same date range last year (ex., December 1 - December 25)
- Review the sales data and variance between periods
This is another example of how powerful our point-of-sale software is for retail management.
This is just the start. You can use the reports there to show you sales trends for key metrics like quickly:
- Overall revenue and profit gains/losses
- Best and worst-selling products
- Average transaction sizes
- Customer traffic patterns
- Effectiveness of promotions
- Inventory needs and stockouts
Compare Multiple Christmas Periods
Run the same sales comparison report for multiple holiday seasons for an even broader view. This can reveal longer-term trends and opportunities.
For example, compare:
- This year (Dec 1 - Dec 25) to...
- Last year (Dec 1 - Dec 25) to...
- Two years ago (Dec 1 - Dec 25)
Look at 3-5 years of Christmas sales data to spot patterns and anomalies. The longer the time frame, the more business intelligence insights you can gain.
Turn Insights into Action
The key is acting on the sales insights uncovered. If a product dropped in sales this year, update its marketing. If a promotion worked well, expand on it next year: address stockouts, staffing issues, and other operational impacts.
Use your POS system's sales data to make data-driven decisions.
If you want to know more, contact us about our retail analytics capabilities.
