Average check in business. Average bill

The average bill is the starting point for sales plans and an important marketing tool. In this article we will tell you how and why a financial director should calculate the average bill, as well as how it can be increased.

What is the average check

Any business depends on revenue. Whether it is trade, manufacturing or the service sector, the amount of revenue determines the success of the business along with the amount of net profit. Naturally, when revenue is calculated, the business grows, but stability or decline are indispensable signs that the company has problems.

But revenue is too general a concept to be analyzed or forecast for any long period of time. Revenue depends on many factors. There are many analytics that you can use to break down your revenue: by market segment, geography, product portfolio, business lines, etc.

But in this article we will look at this formula:

Revenue = Sales amount × Number of sales

That is, if a company wants to increase the amount of revenue, it must manage each of two multipliers:

• look for ways to increase sales (check) to each customer,
• look for ways to expand your customer base.

In businesses with a relatively small number of customers, all relationships with whom are described in contracts, this will be individual work for each specific case. And in retail sales, service sector, retail?

This is where the concept of “average bill” comes into play. Since there are many customers, they are “impersonal” and make a huge number of purchases in total, there is neither the opportunity nor the need to analyze each specific purchase. Therefore, marketers, financiers and managers operate with a convenient “average check”:

Average bill = Revenue ÷ Number of purchases

As you can see, the formula for the average check is as simple as possible, but this does not detract from its importance in the analysis and assessment of current sales, and in forecasting sales for the short-term, and especially long-term periods.

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How to increase the average check

When you know the average ticket size of your business in various sections, of course, the next question you ask yourself will be: “How can I increase the average ticket amount in order to generate more revenue?”

Let's first understand the structure of the check. The check consists of:

1. Quantities of product items (“receipt depth”).
2. Quantities (weight, volume) of product units in each position.
3. Unit prices.

Accordingly, work on increasing the check amount should be in the indicated three directions.

The simplest step towards increasing the check amount is to increase the price per unit of goods. Let's not repeat tritely, supply and demand. We only note that any price increase must be calculated and based on market indicators.

An alternative to raising the price would be the work of the seller (manager, website) to reasonably convince the buyer to buy an analogue product, but more expensive. This is an art and requires knowledge of both assortment and sales technologies, but usually it works.

The number of product items in the average receipt can be increased by encouraging the buyer to buy those goods that he initially did not intend to buy or wanted to buy elsewhere. A very sad situation with marketing for companies whose average receipt contains only one item. This indicates both an insufficient assortment and incorrect layout, as well as the incompetence of the sellers.

Find a counterparty to check

To calculate the average check, the total amount of purchases for the period should be divided by the number of checks issued during the same period. The higher the value obtained, the larger the average bill.

So how can you increase the average check amount?

Method No. 1. Upsells

Practice shows that when purchasing a necessary product, people quite often agree with the offer to purchase something else.

How it works?

As an example, let’s consider the situation where a customer purchased wall paint from you. Offer to buy him a quality brush or roller for painting. The secret here is that the related product should not be more expensive than the main one.

Another upselling method is to place eye-catching little things in the checkout area. This arrangement provokes the buyer to make impulsive purchases.

Method No. 2. Snap effect

Here we are talking about a markdown or discount on a product. In this case, the buyer is inclined to compare the new price (with a discount) with the original cost indicated on the price tag. However, he does not analyze the realism of these prices and their compliance with the market average.

How it works?

For example, consider sales. Even with a significant increase in the original cost of the product, the buyer sees his own benefit in the difference between the initial and discount prices. As a rule, such a benefit provokes the visitor to make a purchase.

Method number 3. Benefits of larger packaging

Frequent sales of larger volumes of goods can significantly increase the average bill.

How it works?

An example is the sale of coffee at McDonald's. If a customer orders a latte, then when asked by the cashier: “small or large?”, he is more likely to answer “large,” although, perhaps, a small one would suit him just fine.

Method number 4. Bonuses

There are many ways to accrue bonuses, but most of them are designed for the possibility of the buyer receiving some kind of addition if he makes purchases for a certain amount.

How it works?

Let's assume that the average check in a store is 850 rubles. You can offer customers to purchase additional goods up to 1000 rubles and in this case receive a gift from the store for free (for 1 kopeck). As a rule, this works flawlessly. At the same time, store employees need to be instructed which product items are included in the promotion.

Method No. 5. Wrong math

This means carrying out promotions “1+1=3”, “2+1=4” or selling different products in sets, in which each component element costs significantly more separately.

How it works?

You can offer clients a ready-made set in a perfumery store, consisting, for example, of eau de parfum, body milk and soap of the same brand. Moreover, the price of such a set will be 20% less than if each product was purchased separately.

Method number 6. Delivery is free

This method is often used when trading online.

How it works?

Let’s say that the average check in your online store is 2000 rubles, and delivery of the purchase is 200 rubles. A limit amount is set, for example, 3000 rubles. A purchase exceeding this limit automatically guarantees the customer free delivery.

Method No. 7. Proper display of goods

Proper placement of goods on store shelves helps to increase the average check amount. They often use a technique such as placing nearby products that belong to different product groups.

How it works?

As an example, consider a mono-brand women's clothing store. It would be correct to place products nearby that complement each other (clothes, shoes, accessories).

Method No. 8. Offer a product cheaper

It often happens that a client hesitates for a long time before purchasing an expensive product. Try to offer him an analogue at a lower price and some other related product with a significant margin, explaining that he gets the opportunity to purchase two necessary things at once for this money. This method not only increases the average check amount, but also significantly increases the loyalty of visitors to the object of sale.

How it works?

For example, if a buyer doubts the advisability of buying an electric kettle from a well-known brand, then you can offer him to buy an analogue with the same functions and design for a lower price, and in addition to it, a thermal mug.

Method No. 9. Discounts, promotions, sales

Carrying out promotions for the holidays, as well as seasonal sales, can significantly increase the average check at your retail outlet.

How it works?

Many chain stores have special stands with discounted goods. If a visitor sees ads “everything for 450” or “today only 50% discount,” he will consider it advisable to take advantage of the situation and buy several things at once.

In conclusion, I would like to note that it is worth trying different methods of increasing the amount of the average check, selecting suitable options specifically for your direction and sometimes changing them. All your efforts will help not only increase sales, but also increase the loyalty of visitors to your establishment, which is guaranteed to make many of them your regular customers.

Increasing monthly profits is a task that every entrepreneur sets for himself. It doesn't matter what he does. It could be a store or boutique, a cafe or restaurant. But a good owner should know what the average bill is. Moreover, it is his responsibility to convey this information to employees. This is the only way you can build relationships with consumers in the most effective way.

Basics of trading

When opening a business, a person is very worried about profit. This is logical, because it now depends on her whether he can return the money invested and recoup his personal contribution. And sometimes luck smiles from the very beginning, and clients keep coming. It would seem that success is guaranteed. But gradually revenue begins to decline. The buyer simply got used to your services, and they ceased to be something special.

How to increase profits? Many will say that you just need to find new consumers. Yes, this can increase sales, but how to achieve this? Typically, implementing such a scenario requires enormous investments in advertising. If the budget is already set, then you will have to look for other methods. This is where it’s worth remembering what an average check is.

Definition

This variable is important for every entrepreneur. At the same time, you can easily calculate it yourself, without resorting to the help of economists. What is the average check? This is the average amount spent by each customer over a certain period of time. This could be a day, a week or a month. The formula is very simple, it is revenue divided by the number of receipts.

Whatever period you take, the number will still be indicative. This is the average amount that a buyer leaves at the checkout. If you increase it, your income will increase. Let's imagine that a supermarket serves five thousand customers a day. At the same time, the average bill is 1 thousand rubles. If you increase each of them by 10 rubles, the company will receive more profits by 50 thousand rubles. But this is just the price of chewing gum or similar trifles. You just need to find a way to convince the client that he needs it. Now we know what the average bill is. How can I increase it?

Working in a supermarket

Each of us regularly makes purchases here and is well acquainted with the structure of these trading platforms. There are rows of products where sales assistants are on duty, as well as cash registers where you pay. You will see the receipt form at the checkout, and while you are walking around the sales area, you are quite calmly filling your cart.

Store marketers take advantage of this by placing tempting discount offers, advertising posters and other material on your way that encourages you to make purchases. What can be done here to increase the average check?

Possible options:

Pre-cash area

And again let's return to the practice of the supermarket. While walking around the sales floor, you choose a product and come to the checkout. Notice how brightly it is decorated. Chewing gum, chocolates, cigarettes and other little things just hang around the cash register from all sides. Remember, the buyer has not yet received a blank check. He can only estimate the amount in his head. And of course, while he is standing in line, the thought may well come to mind that it would be nice to buy a chocolate bar for the child. In this case, nothing critical happens, because the amount will increase slightly.

The next point is the cashier himself. Using memorized words, she offers the package. Again taking care of you, and again increasing the average bill. Seeing that you bought tea, many will recommend fresh cookies that were recently delivered. And so on.

Catering establishments

There are differences here, so let’s separate them into a separate category. Sales volumes are no less important for restaurant owners. Therefore, they also do analytics and look for ways to increase profits. But the implementation of the plan will be somewhat different.

The average bill at a restaurant can be calculated in several ways. Usually calculations are made on a per-dish basis. As a result, the average bill can be considered the cost of the main course, dessert and appetizer, excluding alcohol and drinks. But you can choose another method. For example, the average check can be considered the amount deposited by the waiter at the cash desk per day, divided by the number of guests served.

How can I increase it?

There aren't many options here. It is necessary to train staff to work with customers. Sales volumes directly depend on the quality of service. It is strictly forbidden to use crude methods of “sniffing” and deception. Your goal is to maintain customer loyalty.

Nothing new has been invented here. To increase the average check, you need to sell menu items in addition to the overall order or offer more expensive alternatives to selected dishes. Moreover, this should happen unobtrusively, as a sincere manifestation of concern. The waiter may remind you of bread or crackers for broth, a special sauce for meat, water or another drink.

Methods for increasing a check

It wasn’t until recently that marketers discovered the relationship between the average check and profit, so the methods are not new either:

• Upselling - offering a more expensive alternative. For example, two guests order a portion of sushi. Why not offer them a set that includes more flavors?
• Cross-selling is an expansion of the order line. Here the waiter simply has endless scope for imagination. Guests can be offered sauces and gravies, salads and appetizers, ice cream toppings, and additional pizza toppings.

Waiter's job in a cafe

Here the clients are somewhat different from those who entered the restaurant. But even for them there are a sufficient number of techniques with which you can increase profits. The average bill in a cafe also depends on the quantity and cost of what visitors purchase. There's a great way to sell more by simply offering an aperitif. There are certain rules according to which this can be done easily and naturally:

Instead of a conclusion

All these techniques only work in one case: if quality comes first. The products sold must be good and proven, otherwise you will lose a buyer. Food in a cafe should be tasty and of high quality. It is useless to try to increase the average bill and save on such basic things.

Both successful and failing businesses require careful analytics and calculations of key indicators. You need to know why things are going the way they are, what changing certain things might mean, what to expect in the future, or what needs to be done to get the results you want. One of the parameters that needs to be calculated in order to get reasonable answers to all these questions is the average bill. This is a simple parameter, but also extremely important, because it can be used in many other calculations and food for thought about many aspects of the company.

What is the average check

The average bill is an amount that equals the entire volume of purchases made over a certain period of time, divided by the total number of purchases during this time. Thus, this is not just all completed purchases and orders, but an average indicator - between all orders that each customer made during one visit to a store or, for example, contacting a company to order services. Why is calculating the average bill so important? Because it says a lot. If you evaluate the dynamics of changes in the average check, you will be able to draw conclusions about how the various changes that were made earlier worked: assortment policy, pricing policy, advertising, marketing activities, merchandising - all this can be reflected in the size of the average check. In addition, the average check can be considered in the context of each individual employee in order to determine his effectiveness or find out whether it made sense to conduct training events, etc.

Eventually, calculation formula The average check looks like this:

Average check = revenue / number of checks

Analysis of the average check indicator

A simple calculation of the average bill does not tell us anything. The obtained figures need to be analyzed and done periodically. Tracking the dynamics of the average check allows you to find out the following: quantities, also necessary for analytics of many aspects of business:

• average bill size;
• average number of checks over a period of time;
• check amount interval.

Every marketer should operate with these indicators, because they indicate the general position of the company or store. The period for which you need to analyze average checks is determined based on how intensively you or. This could be a month, a week, or even a day if purchases are made from you very often. The main thing is that one-time calculations do not give anything - you need to observe processes in dynamics. Scheme or analysis algorithm average checks may look like this:

• collecting data from all received checks;
• calculation of the above values ​​and assessment of their dynamics;
• carrying out activities based on the findings;
• reanalysis;
• if the dynamics are positive, work to consolidate the result;
• if the dynamics are negative, search for new solutions.

And when you repeat these steps regularly, you can draw conclusions about various aspects of your business:

Intensity of work of cash registers and cashiers. This is true for retail stores. You will know better what time you have the greatest influx of customers, what day of the week is the busiest and least busy. Knowing minute by minute when your customer flow is, you can optimize the operation of your checkout counters.

Average check amount. A basic parameter that will tell you a lot about who your buyer is, how much he is willing to spend, and whether it will be easy for you to reach a more solvent segment.

The work of sellers and the structure of retail space. This may be evidenced by the number of product items on the receipt: if the products on the receipt are monotonous, or some are found much more often than others, this is a possible sign that the goods in the store are not laid out in the best way, or that the sellers do a poor job of handling them. To increase the list of goods in the receipt, you can review both the assortment policy and prices, and conduct training courses for staff so that related products are sold in the store more often. But, of course, you need to take into account the specifics of the goods in the check: if the transaction was made, then there is nothing to worry about if there is only one in the check.

Customer loyalty. Knowing the average size of a check, you can determine at what value it is worth introducing discounts, bonuses or other events that will be designed to increase customer loyalty so that they make purchases from you more often.

Form of payment. Sometimes an analysis of how customers pay can yield interesting results: the statistics for cash and non-cash payments are different. Those who pay by card tend to have a higher average bill.

Seasonality. A very important indicator. Knowing what time of year, month, week, day, and on the eve of which holidays, you have more sales, a higher average check, you can develop marketing activities to stimulate demand on the hottest days. Or, on the contrary, increase demand during unfavorable periods.

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Where does it all begin? Let's imagine two friends meet, both wealthy people, business owners. They talk about life, compare their authority, the beauty of their wives and the length of their cars. Someone’s car turns out to be shorter, they urgently need to buy a new one – “richer”. Instructs the secretary to conduct an urgent analysis of the car market. Having received the results, he finds out that the thickness of the wallet is diametrically opposite to the “steepness” of the car.

Or so, the same business owner is losing his capital and realizes that his business is not bringing the desired income, loans are hanging, banks are calling every day, interest is rising and there is no light at the end of the tunnel in the current state of affairs.

Or there may be such a situation - the owner of a business is a caring manager who cares for his employees (by the way, the situation is not so rare for a modern capitalist, including Russian). Or maybe the owner is just a numismatist? Selflessly loves banknotes, especially in large quantities. Maecenas? Or he simply sees that his business can bring more income and passion overtakes him. You can give an unlimited number of examples, but they all have only one thing in common - the owner needs additional funds that he wants to dispose of in one way or another.

What is important for an employee to understand (that is, for you and me, dear reader) is that it is absolutely normal for the owner to want profit from his business (unless, of course, the size is manic, however, even then it is normal). This is his business, which he at one time started, developed, poured his soul into (maybe he just bought it - but for money that was also not easy for him, for which he worked hard and also poured his soul into it) and he has the right to demand from his employees to give him this profit . It is just as normal as the fact that an employee with qualifications, skill, diligence and other merits has the right to demand from the business owner the benefits that he deserves due to his contribution to the business owner’s business.

So, let's agree on this understanding - a business owner has the right to want greater returns from the business, regardless of the reasons that motivate him. What is this return? Of course, money! The goal of any business is to make a profit!

What is dear Ivan Sergeevich (Valentin Petrovich, Anna Stepanovna and other combinations of names and patronymics) doing? He calls his general director (chairman of the board of directors, sales director or other top officials of the company) and names the desired amount.

After some forecasting and the owner’s settings, the manager is given the task of making a certain amount of revenue.

How can a manager achieve his turnover goal?

Before examining this issue, I will give an example of setting goals in one retail company. Imagine, top managers of a network meet to discuss the issue of increasing profits. It should be noted that over a fairly long period of its existence, this company for the first time came to the conclusion that a management system was still needed, that the volume of development was already outpacing and surpassing the manual control that had prevailed until now. All those gathered begin to express their decisions and propose specific actions. Until the turn came to one of the network development managers. He sat silent for a long time, listened to others, and then spoke out: “Why all these decisions, why all these actions? We just need to tell people to work better, to sell more!”

Well, in general it’s difficult to object to this decision. Let's look at the options if this solution were pushed further down. “Sell more and do better,” the sales director told his store managers. What will an ordinary director do when receiving such an order? He scratches his head and shrugs his shoulders. After all, it already works, in his opinion, well and ensures the sales process to the maximum (again in his opinion). It will scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, and then it will start working as before. What would a more advanced director do? He will go out into the sales area (lounge room, dining room, reception and other places where the team usually gathers) and say: “Dear team, senior management analyzed our activities and allowed the control center to work better and sell more.” What will the team do? He scratches, scratches his head, shrugs his shoulders. After all, they already think that they are working to the limit, they believe that their contribution is underestimated, and here is such news. Well, of course, they will work as before.

Let me remind you that we are talking about a company that never thought about this issue at all. When setting goals for their subordinates, many managers naively think that their subordinates will not only be able to independently understand the actions that they need to take, but will also be able to carry out these actions.

Let's look at our task again - the company must receive a certain amount of money - turnover. Let’s assume that this turnover is greater than the store made before this period (and this always happens) or the market situation is such that sales dynamics are declining, but the plan is the same. Let's take even a specific figure of 10,000,000 rubles. And it was 9,000,000 rubles...

"And now what i can do?" - the director will think. “To hell with it,” the pessimistic director will think and deduct the bonus amount from his salary in advance. “What if fate turns around?” - the optimist will think.

But if the director wants to be effective, if he says: “I will do it,” then he immediately faces a whole range of questions: Where to start? How to forecast revenue? What to do? What should I do and what should the staff do? What should I tell the staff? How do I know if my staff is capable of performing these tasks? How to make sure everyone understands correctly? How do I know that they understood everything correctly and then followed through? How can I explain to the staff that this is necessary and how to motivate them to complete these tasks?

What a store director needs to initially understand is that he does not directly influence turnover. How so? Who brings the money? Who does all the capital go through? Any leader will ask. That's right - stores bring in money, and capital flows through them, but the store has an indirect influence on turnover directly. The thing is that turnover is the final result of the product of several financial indicators. These indicators are as follows: traffic, conversion, average bill. Let's figure out what these indicators are.

Traffic is the number of visitors in the store. Visitors - not buyers - that is, only those who entered the store but did not make a purchase. Traffic is one of the indicators for determining conversion - without traffic, conversion (more about it below) cannot be calculated. How can you find out your traffic? Basically, this is working with customer counters. They are installed at the entrance of the store and record everyone entering the sales area. The most effective installation from a performance management point of view would be to install counters that receive traffic data online. Some companies that have installed meters enter into contracts for processing and receiving data during the next period (for example, the next day). This is not critical for data analysis and forecasting, but it deprives the department manager of operating traffic data in the current situation.

In addition to the fact that conversion is determined with the help of traffic, traffic gives us an understanding of the popularity of your brand, the increase/decrease in the number of visitors during holidays, vacations, and determine the seasons of active selection of a particular product category. Traffic is an integral indicator for analyzing store performance.

Average check (hereinafter we will call it SP)– the average cost of one check for a separate period of time. That is, how much money does the average buyer leave in our cash register. The average is calculated as follows:

SP = Turnover / Number of receipts

That is, to determine it, the manager only needs to know the amount of purchases (turnover) for the required period and the number of transactions performed at the checkout. For some, this calculation is carried out by specially implemented technologies (programs that process cash and warehouse transactions) and information on the inventory can be obtained online. Somewhere these same programs provide information after the fact (the next day). Here we repeat - for analysis and forecasting this is normal, but for current operational management of indicators it is critical. MF data should always be at hand. As one example of manual counting for those who do not have this program, but want to know this information. – we take an X-report at the checkout for the specified period - there is data on turnover and the number of transactions performed and we calculate the average manually. What the SCh gives us is, first of all, an understanding of the value of the product being sold for the buyer, the opportunity to analyze the assortment matrix, and most importantly, the quality of work of its division.

However, analysis of the average check does not yet give us a clear picture of specific moments in the work of staff. In order to understand what exactly to pay attention to when analyzing the quality of work, it is necessary to divide the average price into two more components: the average cost of the goods and the depth of the receipt.

Average purchase price- this is the average cost of one unit of goods sold, regardless of the number of receipts, for a separate period of time. Calculated as follows:

SS = Turnover / Number of positions sold

If your store has a lot of traffic and a lot of purchases, then you can’t do without a special program; calculating this indicator manually is difficult with high sales activity. This can be done manually in stores with low conversion and traffic (for example, in the jewelry segment).

Check depth– this is the average number of positions in one receipt for a separate period of time. That is, this is the number of purchases made by the average customer during one store visit. It is calculated as follows.

MS = Number of items sold / Number of receipts

It is also better to calculate HR using a special program.

Knowing the dynamics of the SS and MS, the manager will be able to quickly formulate tasks aimed at maintaining or increasing these indicators (for example, designing complex solutions, monitoring the skills of questions about the experience of using products when working with the buyer - there are a great many methods and we will talk about them separately).
Another mathematical point - the average can be obtained not only by the above method of dividing the turnover by the number of checks, if we multiply the SS and the MS, we will also get the value of the average accurate to the ruble.

Let's move on to the last of the indicators that form the store's turnover, conversion or conversion rate.

Conversion rate– this is the ratio of the number of store visitors to the number of people who made a purchase in a particular period of time. In other words, the percentage of customers who made a purchase in the store. Calculated as follows:

QC = Number of receipts/Traffic

As already mentioned, in order to calculate this indicator you need to know the incoming traffic. Some managers are confident that they can estimate their traffic approximately, “by eye,” and are confident in the accuracy of their calculations. Can such calculations be trusted? In no case! Errors from such approximate indicators range from 10% to 100%!!! Why (besides accurately calculating the turnover forecast) do you need knowledge about conversion? In many ways, conversion can be compared to the word atmosphere in a store. The extent to which the buyer likes your store, the conversion will be high. The set of tools for increasing indicators is also quite large, and we will also talk about it in future articles.

Remember we said that the director (and staff) do not influence turnover directly, but only through indicators? So, the director also does not have a direct influence on one of the indicators described above. Traffic, SS, GC, KK - which one? Of course it's traffic. Most directors don't have tools to manage traffic (unless we're talking about repeat customer visits, which is very difficult to calculate - and we won't, since this calculation will not have an impact on the tools discussed here). SP, SS, MC, QC are indicators on which the influence of the store director and staff is extremely large (albeit not unlimited) and therefore these indicators are called quality indicators of the store.

“Wait, wait!” - you say: “What about the other indicators?” There are also other indicators, for example, product margins, product turnover. They are certainly important if you calculate the profitability of your store; this is a very relevant topic in the modern retail business, and this topic is for a separate article.

But there are also other indicators - the sale of certain product categories, services (for example, the sale of discounted, “stale” goods, installation of equipment, delivery, insurance, etc.). These indicators also indicate the quality of the store, but they are all components of the average, since each of these types of products or services has its own cost and occupancy. We will, of course, talk about them, but within the framework of the main financial indicator - average.

So, to understand how to achieve a goal, we need to determine what stage of achievement we are at and where we should go. Our main tools are three indicators (traffic, MF, QC) - Three components of success. If we take these store indicators for a certain period and multiply them together, we will get the turnover for the given period. The formula looks like this:

Turnover formula (Formula for success, Formula for organic growth) =
Average bill * Conversion rate * Traffic

It is important to remember that this formula is mathematical, that is, if we substitute our current indicators into the values ​​of Average Receipt, Conversion Rate and Traffic, we will get our current turnover.

We will discuss what to do with these indicators and how to influence them in the following articles.