When Numbers Lie

September was Curio City's first loser month in quite some time, and yet it beat expectations for three reasons: 

(1) The first week should have been September's strongest. Instead, it took Turnkey four days to fix the shipping module that the latest USPS rate change broke. $835 of this month's $390 shortfall happened that week -- which is to say that I might have finished up by $445, all else being equal.


(2) I've been advertising on both AdWords and Google Shopping for years. I write my own ads and select my own keywords on AdWords, but a couple of years ago I turned bidding over to their algorithm. I had gradually winnowed out product groups until I was only advertising kites. This month, I finally shut those ads down, too. AdWords produced five sales in August at a cost of $33.85 per sale, costing me $170 to bring in $350. Hypothetically, this month's sales might have been higher by that amount, but in reality kite season peters out in September anyway, so all I can really say is that I saved some money and forfeited a few sales. Shopping, OTOH, is entirely computer-generated from a product data file that I upload each month. In August it brought in 21 sales at just $5.46 apiece.

As an unexpected bonus, junk phone calls fell off dramatically after I shut down AdWords.  
 
(3) As sales remain unexpectedly strong, I am slowly running out of appealing products to sell, and most of what I do still move is heavily discounted.

Anyway, here are September's numbers according to QuickBooks. Three Blue Hills projects that have been billed out, but not yet paid, threw the stats seriously out of whack -- especially payroll, since that's where 90% of Blue Hills revenue will go. 

September

Total income: +121.8%
Payroll: -79.8%

Marketing: -73.2%
Net Income (Profit) vs LY: +963.2% (+$3,566)

Actual Profit/Loss: +$3,195

2017 YTD

Total income: +70.1%
Total COGS: +8.5%
Payroll: +229.2%

Marketing: -28.1%
Net Income (Profit) vs LY: +355% (+$8,300)

Actual Profit/Loss: +$5,962

Excel says that Curio City came in $389 behind LY. With a day and a half to go, that could still shrink to nothing. 

October is historically one of the sleepiest months of the year as Christmas sales don't really start cooking until Halloween. Expectations are low.