Sales/mo is how many units a product sells in an average month while it’s in stock, over the last 12 months. Tendlio uses it to tell your fast sellers from your slow ones, and to work out what each product earns in a month.
How Tendlio counts it #
Tendlio adds up the units a product sold in the last 12 months and divides them by the months it was in stock in that time. A product that sold 30 units and was sold out for two of those months sells 3 a month: 30 units over 10 months.
If you listed the product less than 12 months ago, Tendlio divides by the months since you listed it, and never by less than one month.
WooCommerce doesn’t record when a product was out of stock, so Tendlio can only leave out the stockouts it has recorded since you installed Tendlio. If a product was sold out before then, that time counts as time without sales.
When a product is out of stock right now, its Sales/mo shows the pace it had while it was in stock, and an h next to the number marks it as historical.
Which sales count #
- Tendlio counts the units on orders with a status that counts as a sale: Completed, Processing and On hold, unless you’ve changed the list. Canceled, refunded, failed and pending payment orders never count. Which orders count as a sale explains when and where you can change it.
- A partial refund doesn’t take units off, because the order still counts.
- Products given away as Tendlio’s free gift don’t count as sold.
Where you see it #
- Products & insights: the Sales/mo column. In the same table, Revenue/mo is Sales/mo times the product’s price, and Profit/mo is Sales/mo times what you make on each unit, the price minus the cost.
- A product’s Insights page, under Sales / month. Under What comes next, the forecast panel starts from the same pace, rounded, for example “Right now this product sells about 3 a month.”
- Reports → Margins and Reports → Out of stock show the same Sales/mo. Reports → Best sellers has a Sales/mo column that counts the months a product was sold out as months without sales, so a product that was out for a while looks slower there. Hover over a column title to see which of the two you’re reading.
What Tendlio uses it for #
- Health colors: Tendlio compares each product’s Sales/mo with your typical pace to give it Fast, Steady or Slow. Product health colors explains how.
- Stopped selling: the Catalog filter on Products & insights and a card on your To do page use it to find products that have gone quiet. These are products that sold in the last 12 months and have now gone without a sale for longer than it usually takes them to sell three units. A product that sells one a month counts as stopped after about three months without a sale. A product needs at least 90 days without a sale to count as stopped, and after a year without one it’s Dead instead. Sold-out and out-of-season products aren’t on the list, and neither are products you listed in the last 90 days.
- Restock: the Restock page uses Sales/mo, or the 30-day forecast when that’s higher, as the product’s current pace when it works out how many to order. For a seasonal product out of its season, it takes the forecast alone.
- Inventory Score: the products that sell fastest by Sales/mo are the best-sellers that its Stockout Risk and Restock Readiness parts watch.
Why Sales/mo works this way #
Why only the time in stock counts #
A product can’t sell while it’s sold out. If those months counted, a best-seller that was out for two of the last 12 months would look a sixth slower, and the Restock page would suggest ordering less of it when you most need more.
Why it changes slowly #
Sales/mo is an average over 12 months, so a product that started selling faster last month moves up only a little. To see whether a product is speeding up or slowing down, look at the vs last year column on Products & insights. It compares the units sold in the last 30 days with the same 30 days a year ago.
Additional resources #
- Product health colors (Fast / Steady / Slow / Dead)
- Forecast & “runs out in”
- How to decide what to restock and how much to order
- Which orders count as a sale
- Sales velocity
- What to do with dead stock
Frequently asked questions #
Why is Sales/mo different from what I sold last month? #
Sales/mo is an average over the last 12 months, counting only the time the product was in stock. The vs last year column shows the last 30 days.
Why do two reports show a different Sales/mo for the same product? #
Reports → Best sellers counts the months a product was sold out as months without sales. Products & insights, Reports → Margins and Reports → Out of stock leave them out.
Does a refund lower Sales/mo? #
A partial refund doesn't. A fully refunded order no longer has a status that counts as a sale, so its units drop out at the next analysis.