Data analysis · Matthews, NC
Data analysis for Matthews makers and shops
Matthews has a Saturday farmers market, a winter schedule and a big Labor Day parade. Each one raises the same question for an owner: did the people who came become customers?
Matthews data analysis and the Saturday market
The Matthews Community Farmers Market sits on N. Trade Street and says it has supported local farmers and makers for 33 years. In winter it keeps shorter Saturday hours, with a few Tuesday evening markets. A baker or candle maker there may see two different crowds.
We separate summer Saturdays from winter ones in your sales and compare orders per market day. Then we check average order, because a smaller winter crowd sometimes buys more per person.
The formula for a market season
Order rate is orders divided by leads. At a market stall a lead might be a person who took a card or signed a list. If four people signed and three later ordered, the rate is 75%. Your own list will be longer, and the formula stays the same.
We also look at orders that came after the market, such as a holiday reorder. Those hide inside online sales, so we trace them back to the stall visit when your records connect the two.
A town with a few loud days and a long quiet stretch
The Matthews Alive Labor Day parade is described as the largest in the Southeastern United States. A loud day like that can overshadow weeks of ordinary sales in a shop owner's memory.
Memory is the thing we check. We list the parade week and the weeks around it, run the same measure on each and show the figures. Central Piedmont's Small Business Center gives free advising across Mecklenburg County, and we hand you the numbers to bring.
A short note on what comes next
After analysis comes visualization. If the Saturday result surprises you, a chart makes it easy to show a stall partner or a family member who helps on market days. The picture comes from the same table, and every bar traces back to the receipts behind it.
Before that, we agree on the receipts or exports to use, so the chart and the answer cannot drift apart. Anything we cannot tie to a Saturday gets labeled as unknown instead of guessed.
Questions from Matthews owners
I sell at the market and online. Can you combine them?
Yes. We clean both into one table, then compare the channels with one formula. If an online order cannot be tied to the market, we say where the link breaks.
Is a winter season too short to analyze?
A short season gives a small sample. We still run it and report how much weight it can hold.
What do I need to bring to the call?
A question and a sense of where your sales are written down. Cash sheets, card exports and notebooks all work.
Sources for the facts on this page: Matthews Community Farmers Market · Matthews, North Carolina, Wikipedia · Small Business Center, Central Piedmont Community College
Find out what your Matthews Saturdays are worth
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