A simple way to identify customers who are not buying or products that are not selling is to use the activity filter. You can also change this filter to combine activity with no activity to identify opportunities.
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Activity filter
Depending on the database you are analysing, the labels may be different.
Filter by sales, no sales or opportunities
Sales database
Activity
The default view in a sales database is usually 'Sales onlyActivity' i.e., where there have been transactions in a period and where the result is not zero.
How to exclude refunds or giveaways
You can exclude items such as refunds or giveaways (where positive and negative sales transactions have the net effect of summing to zero) by unticking Show net zero.
No
salesActivity
'No salesactivity' displays only items where there were no transactions in a period. All items with no sales are highlighted in green. Results depend on how up to date your source data is, e.g., you may see customers that have long since ceased trading, or products that are discontinued.
OpportunitiesAll
This combines 'Opportunities' puts 'Sales Only' Activity' and 'No SalesActivity' together, i.e. it displays all items regardless of whether a transaction has occurred. Note that selecting Show net zero will affect the results so that 'OpportunitiesAll' may not necessarily return the same number of rows as if you simply combined those two options.
Example 1. Find customers who are not buying
Example 1: Use the activity filter to identify customers who are not buying. In this example, we want to know which customers have not purchased from Harry this calendar year to date (YTD).
- Choose the Sales database, then select Periods > Calendar YTD.
- Select the 'Rep' dimension, then select and focus on Harry.
- Select the 'Customer' dimension to show customers who have bought from Harry this calendar YTD.
- Select No SalesActivity. The screen will display the 15 customers who have not bought from Harry this YTD, highlighting them in light blue.
Example 2. Identify products that aren't selling
Example 2: Use the activity filter to identify which products a particular customer is not buying. In this example, we want to see which product categories our number one customer is not buying.
- Choose the 'Sales' database and 'Customer' dimension.
- Sort the Total column in descending order, and select and focus on the number one customer (at the top of the list)
- Select the 'Product Category' dimension. This will display those product categories that our best customer has bought.
- Select No Sales from Activity from the activity filter button. The grid now shows that there are 9 product categories that our best customer is not buying from us, highlighted in bright green.
Note
The activity filter in a sales database contains the following options: sales only, no sales and opportunities. A 'Purchasing' database might have 'purchases only', 'no purchases' and 'opportunities'.
Other databases
- Purchasing
- Inventory
- Finance
- Sales & Stock
- Sales, stock & purchasing
- Accounts payable
- Accounts receivable
- CRM