Work with your business cycles instead of against them

Now that winter is well underway, it's time to prune our fruit trees.

By doing it during the dormant season, the plants aren't hurt and can grow better throughout the upcoming year.

Similarly your Shopify store follows a cycle too. It could be the regular commerce cycle (busy in Q4, light in Q1) or a summer cycle (busy in summer, light in winter).

You can tell what your cycle is by looking at sales volume and the number of new customers each month (i.e. using the cohort reports in Repeat Customer Insights).

It's best to perform maintenance in the lighter parts of the cycle. For the regular commerce cycle that means using this month and next month to catch-up on deferred issues, start long-term projects, and get a plan together for the last quarter of the year.

Sure you could do that stuff later in summer or fall but just like with the trees, it'll be more painful and you'll need to be more careful.

Best to work with the natural cycle than to fight against it.

Eric Davis