How Many Customer Orders Can We Expect?

CJ sends in an excellent question from the trenches:

A general question: out of all the stores you show a product to, what is a good share of orders?  That is, if I show it to 100 stores (not happening), if I got orders from 50, is that good?  And a follow-up: out of the original 50, how many re-orders would be good?

***Wow...  I have no idea... never considered that metric, since trade shows are such chaotic events...  any given person at any given time in a booth might be on any mission... buyer, seller, press, show  management.. my guess is the big guys scanning badges are working those metrics and holding salepeople to performance.

And here is the other part, it’s not about percentages, it is about covering minimums.  Say the minimum supplier requirement is $5000 worth, and you are wholesaling at double, so you need $10,000 in orders collectively, and the workable time frame is X.  the goal is not some percentage of contacts converted to orders, the goal is the $10K within X.

So say the minimum needs be met is 250 orders within the ten weeks of the trade show cycle, and say that is within X.

Best case, you get 250 orders.

What if the first 250 orders were placed by the first 250 people to look at the item?  Then I’d say you spent way too much time on getting the design right. Such effort would cost a fortune you would likely never recover.

What if the first 250 orders were placed by the first 1000 people to look at the item?  Then I’d say your probably within reason, and the sales rep was not too disappointed.  

What if the first 25 orders were placed by the first 500 people to look at the item? Looks like a high rejection rate. Then I’d say your rep would be saying, “everyone says the sample is wrong color, weight, speed, function, material, flavor (or whatever) and you should redesign before we go on.”

What if the first 250 orders were placed by the first 50,000 people to look at the item?  Never been here, so it is an interesting problem.  Clearly you have negative feedback, but clearly you can import and make money.  What to do?  Do this transaction, plus re-design for the next cycle?  Reorders are unlikely for an item with so little attractiveness, but one never knows.  Interesting hypothetical problem

As to reorders, they indicate you are on the right track.  In the case of no reorders, the “no” always comes with “why...” the reason is that customers said “wrong color, weight, speed, function, material, flavor (or whatever).”  So redesign is necessary.

And reorders are being matched with new customer orders to make up a sufficient minimum order quantity, in order that we may increase the frquency of imports, so we can amke more money by frequency, not volume.

And as this is all going on, we are not only redesiging, we are acting on feedback of what else we shuld be developing, so we can sell more items to each customers with each order we get.

It is more of a spiral than a line.  Does this make sense?

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