Trends

Trends shows how your selling changes over time. It answers four questions in order: Am I growing? More shows, or better shows? Are buyers coming back? When should I go live, and for how long? Each answer is a sentence with a chart under it, worked out from your shows in NotBot Data.

To open it, click Trends in the sidebar under Data.

The pictures on this page come from a sample account.

Choose a period

Under Trends a line names the period, the weeks it covers, what it is compared with and your time zone, for example “Last 12 weeks · Jul 20 to Oct 11 · compared with the 12 weeks before · times in America/Chicago”. Every day and hour on the page is in that time zone.

Step 1: Pick a platform and a period

Click All platforms or one platform. Then click a period:

Period	What it covers
Last 12 weeks	The default. The last 12 whole weeks, Monday to Sunday, compared with the 12 weeks before them.
Last 52 weeks	The last 52 whole weeks, compared with the 52 weeks before them.
This year	From January 1 to today.
Custom	Pick your own From and To dates.

A period of up to 52 whole weeks is compared with the same number of weeks right before it. The week under way is shown apart: it joins the charts and the comparisons when it ends on Sunday. A week that the period’s first or last day cuts in two, such as the week holding January 1 in This year, is left out of the charts and comparisons too; the week by week table still lists it. A period longer than 53 weeks is shown month by month and is not compared with an earlier one.

When the period has sales in more than one currency, a currency menu appears beside the period chips. Every amount on the page is in the currency you pick; other currencies are never added in.

The headline and the four tiles

A sentence at the top sums up the period, for example “Gross is up 183% on the 12 weeks before”. Under it, four tiles show Gross, Shows, Per show (gross per show) and New buyers back in 4 weeks, each with its change against the period before and a small line of how it moved week by week. Click a tile to jump to the question it belongs to.

The page only compares two periods when each has at least 5 shows and some sales with a price. Until then the tiles show this period’s figures alone, and the sentence says why nothing is compared. A change under 3% reads About level.

1 of 4: Am I growing?

The answer compares your gross with the period before, and says how many weeks beat your old weekly average. The chart has one column per week. Weeks above your old weekly average are coloured differently from the weeks below it, and the lines across the chart are your weekly average in the period before and in this period. The key under the chart names each colour and line. Point at a column to see that week’s gross, shows, gross per show, buyers, and the same week in the period before.

Under the chart, “This week so far” gives the week under way’s gross and shows.

2 of 4: More shows, or better shows?

The answer splits the change in gross into two parts: whether you ran more shows, and whether each show brought in more. For example: “More shows and stronger shows. You ran 16 more shows (27 against 11) and each brought in 15% more ($2,707 a show).” Two charts follow: Shows each week, with a line for your weekly average before, and Gross per show, with a line for the period before.

3 of 4: Are buyers coming back?

The answer gives the share of new buyers who bought again within 4 weeks of their first show, for example “30% of new buyers came back within 4 weeks (10 of 33)”. It needs 20 new buyers who are at least 4 weeks past their first show; until then it gives the count so far.

• New and returning each week shows, for each week, the share of buyers who were new and the share who had bought from you before. It counts matched buyers only; the line above it says how many buyers matched by name were left out.
• Did each week’s new buyers come back? has a dot per week: the share of that week’s new buyers who came back within 4 weeks. A bigger dot means more new buyers. Weeks that ended less than 4 weeks ago are marked Too soon. Until 20 new buyers are 4 weeks past their first show, a line saying how many are so far stands in for the chart.

A new buyer is someone whose first purchase from you was that week. A buyer matched by name is never new or returning, because NotBot cannot tell whether they bought before. See How buyers are matched.

4 of 4: When should I go live, and for how long?

The answer names your strongest repeat time, the weekday and hour where a typical show brought in the most, and the show length that brought in the most. A time needs 5 shows before the page compares it, and a length band needs 5 shows too.

Your best times lists up to five times with 5 or more shows, each with its typical show’s gross and its buyers a show. Until a time has 5 shows, it says No time has 5 shows yet. Under it, a grid has a row for each start hour you have used and a column for each day, Monday to Sunday. The number in a box is how many shows started at that time; a darker box brought in more.

Step 2: Look at one time

Click a time in Your best times or a box in the grid. The card beside it shows that time: “A typical show here brought in” its median gross, with about how many buyers and how long it ran. With fewer than 3 shows at a time, the card says that is not enough to tell how it does. Each show at this time draws its shows oldest first, with a brass line for your typical show at any time, and How long they ran marks this time’s shows in green among all your other shows in grey.

Length against gross draws every show as a circle by how long it ran and what it brought in. The chart is split into four length bands, under 1 hour, 1 to 2 hours, 2 to 3 hours and 3 hours or more, and a band with 3 or more shows gets a bar for its typical show.

On a phone, Times you’ve tried lists each time with its shows instead of the grid.

The week by week table

Step 3: Open the table

At the bottom of the page, click Week by week (or Month by month for a period over 53 weeks). The table has a row for every week of the period.

Column	What it shows
Week of	The Monday the week starts. Click it to see that week’s shows on Shows.
Shows	Shows that week.
Sales	Sales that week.
Gross	Gross in the chosen currency, with “2 without a price” for sales without one, and any other currency under it.
Per show	Gross per show, over the shows whose amounts are known.
Buyers	Everyone who bought that week.
New	Matched buyers whose first purchase from you was that week.
Returning	Matched buyers who had bought at an earlier show.
Back in 4 wks	Of the new buyers, how many bought again within 4 weeks of their first show, for example “1 of 2”. too soon until 4 weeks have passed.
Not matched	Buyers matched by name, counted in Buyers but never new or returning.
Peak	The average of each show’s highest viewer count, over the shows that recorded viewers.
Bids	Bids that week.
Chat	Chat messages that week.

A “+” after Bids or Chat means some of that week’s shows did not record them, so the real number is higher. Click a column heading such as Shows or Gross to sort the table by it, and click it again to reverse the order.

If something looks different

The page shows a few tiles and “What comes next” instead of the four questions

The period has fewer than 5 shows. The page shows what happened (gross, gross per show, new buyers and each show) and lists what it adds once you have more shows. Pick a longer period, or keep going live.

Why isn’t this period compared with the one before?

The period before needs 5 shows too, both periods need sales with a price, and the period can be at most 52 whole weeks long. The sentence at the top says which one is missing.

Why are some sales not in the gross?

Sales without a price are counted in Sales but not in gross or the averages. The foot of the page says how many.

A notice says shows are “still being calculated”

Those shows arrived recently and are not counted yet. Reload the page later.

The page says “Preparing your numbers”

NotBot Data is adding up your shows for the first time. The page fills in on its own.

Where to next

• MonthRead how a stretch of time went, the last 30 days, this year or your own dates, with gross, sales, buyers and chat against the period before, sales by day, and its shows.
• ShowsFind any show you have saved, sort and search them, read each column, and compare up to four shows side by side.
• BuyersEveryone who has bought from you across your shows, sorted into groups you can act on, with what they spent and how often they come back.
• ItemsWhat sold, grouped by item name with lot numbers ignored, with how many sold, at what price, and how each item's auctions did.