Each month in eSeller we provide you with a seasonal trend snapshot for the top products in your portfolio with the disclaimer that the data is overall figures for resellers, not specific to your account. We provide this information so you can check you store activity against anticipated program trends. For example - as we enter into the fall months, domain sales generally pick up. The closer it gets to the winter holiday season in the United States, we generally anticipate a decline in new orders.

Why watch Seasonality?

By watching seasonality you'll get a feel for the ebb and flow of activity on your storefront. As you get to know your audience's buying patterns, short-term dips in sales won't seem so scary. You can use the patterns you identify to determine when you should employ more aggressive marketing techniques to acquire new customers and meet your target revenue and commission levels.

Depending on how often you have time to run and chart data and your sales volume, there are different ways to look at seasonality. You might choose to watch month-to-month as we do in eSeller to so that you can anticipate general market trends for your audience. If you are running regular marketing campaigns you might want to watch week to week, or even daily numbers.

By watching week to week you can get an overview of how a monthly email campaign impacts sales numbers, or compare a week with a popular holiday against a non-holiday week and see if the holiday has a positive or negative effect on your bottom line. If your audience shops on the holidays, you might want to tailor offers with holiday messaging.

If you watch day to day, you should be able to track the time your campaign hits the streets, and see how long it impacts your business. With a successful email campaign you are likely to see an immediate spike the day emails are received, then a fairly steep decline in response over the next few days. Watching day to day will also give you a picture of what days of the week your customers are inclined to shop. If you're reaching business owners, you're likely to see orders placed during weekdays and business hours. If they're hobbyists, you're more likely to see increased sales Friday - Sunday.

To create your own seasonal trend dashboard, decide on the date range you want to monitor and then use the Product Sales Report found in the Reseller Control Center and spreadsheet software to chart your data. Read the blog post "Product Sales Report Tips" for detailed instructions on running stats for overall sales or customer acquisition rates.