Disclosure:

  • Identifiable data has been altered and names changed to maintain complete anonymity.
  • As most charts are done using Tableau, they are interactive and best viewed full screen.
  • You can hover over data points, columns, use the filters, whatever you wish, you’re not going to break them.

COST OF DISCOUNTS

In this case study I will answer the following questions:

  1. Find the least performing sub-category.
  2. Find the three least performing sub-categories.
  3. How effective and/or efficient are the discounts?

 

Least Performing

I’ve consolidated all the charts I studied into this one dashboard, it clarifies all the answers raised. Note:

  • Please view in FULL SCREEN mode
  • As simple as the dashboard looks it packs quite a punch.
  • The top section displays 4 KPIs, since the question raised didn’t define “performance” I provided all 4 for each region
  • The middle section is the main feature, you have a slider that spans from 0-80%
  • Feel free to slide either sides or both, this way you can focus on a specific range of discounts you want the data to display
  • Right underneath it you have markers of discounts: 0%, 10%…up to 80%, those are the discounted values throughout the entire dataset
  • Let’s say you keep the left handle at 0% and slide the right handle to somewhere between 70-80%, let’s say 72% you will see that the markers adjust to 70% because that’s the only discount used in the data between 70 and 80
  • The bottom charts will adjust accordingly and display the sub-categories in ascending orders, so you’ll have the least profitable sub-category on the left and the least sold sub-category on the right
  • At 71% discount, Tables is the lowest profitable sub-category, if you hover your mouse over it, it will highlight the Tables sub-category in the Sales Ranking chart on the right
  • The colors are explained in the lower right panel, and those are adjustable as well, all you have to do is enter boundaries as to what you think should separate Bad from Stale from Great status. Use decimals, for example if you want to use 20% enter 0.2

Discount or Not

The third question raised is vague so I did my best to answer from all angles I can think of.

  • The chart is dead on and very easy to understand, but let me go through it
  • The colored line represents profits, and it’s clear to see when profits turn negative
  • The horizontal axis is the amount of dicsount
  • The grey line is sales, and as expected sales go up as discounts increase
  • The two lines are scaled INDEPENDENTLY, which means don’t compare the position of the lines in relation to one another but pay close attention to the slope of each separately and the discount amount at which they accelerate, reverse direction, or stall
  • Pay attention at the profits at 0%, Profit = 320,946
  • It’s obvious the Profit line turns at 20% and as discounts continue to rise profits decreases to a point at 70% where it drops below the starting point
  • Sales on the other hand keep increasing but start to lose momentum after 50%
  • So to protect your profits the company needs to assess how far their discount policy should go
  • Another point to consider, should the company go past 20% discount if they believe that the added exposure via the additional discount is beneficial to gain a larger market share, and is considered part of a marketing campaign. Then again if you train your consumer to look for discounts, then they’ll learn to wait for them. That’s another case study for another day.

 

Dashboard

Here I’ve presented a dashboard that summarizes what I went through during the analysis. I generated over 25 charts for this case but settled on the most insightful and simple visualization to answer the questions raised.

Note: all these charts are best viewed full screen and NOT on mobile devices.

  • Dashboard is self-explanatory and contains several charts
  • Open it in full screen mode and click on the first grey box labeled Introduction, and move through all panes