how did you get that cool sales report in the admin of ur zencart?

Using the Sales Report contribution found in the Zen Cart downloads section.

One question on this: do you attribute this solely to the work done on the site or partly due to the nature of the product itself? Have you looked at conversion by new vs. returning customers? I’m pretty sure I know the product sold on this web site and it lends itself to reorders…would be interesting and might be a better KPI to measure only new visitors.

Good question, and one that rightfully should be addressed.

This is more attributed to the work done on the site than to the product itself. Sure, a product in a higher demand market will naturally generate more traffic (which depending on the average order value, could result in more or less revenues). However, if the traffic was not qualified, it wouldn’t matter anyhow.

On the other hand, if the traffic was qualified, and the site was not setup correctly, the growth would not be as quick, and the conversion would not be as high.

On the site I show here for illustration, only 25% of the traffic is from repeat orders (returning visitors). 75% comes from new visitors placing new orders (again, a sign of continued growth). If those 75% were not addressed (in the design and “customer experience elements”) then the sales would be drastically reduced and the growth would not be as dynamic.

Instead, 7.5-8.5% of those new customers are converting to new sales each month. This is one reason you see such a jump from November ‘06 to December ‘06 in sales revenue. The traffic to the site was increased based on the data gathered during the first few months of operation, and that caused the jump. In fact, the site’s conversion continues to raise and is currently sustained at 9.61% for the past quarter.

Once you get conversion rates sustained, it then becomes a matter of making small refinements, driving more traffic, keeping in contact with your current customer base, and putting the proper offers in front of the visitors arriving at your site.

Just my .02 and food for thought…good stuff!