This year might feel a little different—just like all of 2020 felt a little(?) different—but one thing we know for sure is that ecommerce business is booming.
After a year of lockdowns and social distancing, more people are buying more things online than ever before, and it doesn’t seem like this will change once the world gets back “normal.”
In other words, it’s a great time to own an ecommerce business.
But are you in a position to maximize this moment?
If you’re spending large chunks of time lost in the complex rows & columns of your trusty old spreadsheet…
we’d argue, no.
Today we’re tackling something a little less tangible, but it’s one of the most important resources you have as a business owner—
Your TIME.
Time is a finite resource. If you were to add up all the minutes & hours you spent in 2020 wrangling data inside an unwieldy spreadsheet, what do you think the total would be?
…And more importantly, what was your ROI on that time?
Did it make you any money? Increase your profitability? Lower your bottom line?
Probably not. Spreadsheets are a massive time-suck, and since they’re so inaccurate and ineffective at helping you run your business, that time almost definitely costs you.
We’ll get into more specifics on just how much it’s costing you in a future email. Today we’re going to deep-dive into all the ways you lose time in spreadsheet-land, and how you can start getting that time back.
Buckle up!
Copying & pasting (and copying & pasting, and copying & pasting)
This is probably the most time-consuming aspect we’ll talk about, and also the most annoying. (When we asked a group of ecommerce sellers what their biggest spreadsheet-related pain points were, this one came up a LOT.)
You already know there are plenty of ways to use your time that would be more effective, more profitable, more fun, and more meaningful than hunching over your screen, squinting, as you copy & paste some numbers from one place to another.
But—just to drive this home—your spreadsheet becomes inaccurate the SECOND it stops being current. Which means there’s a good chance that all that time you spent copying & pasting doesn’t even matter anymore. Ouch.
Too much data
A spreadsheet can contain endless rows and columns, with multiple tabs containing even MORE rows and columns. (Please save us from ourselves!)
Couple that with all the data coming at you in an ecommerce business, and many sellers will stuff their spreadsheets with every single data point available.
It’s too much. Honestly.
External users
Say you need to share your spreadsheet with a CPA, or your bookkeeper, or a potential buyer, or a new hire. Granting access, recording screencasts to explain all the formulas and where everything lives, fielding questions—what. a. time. suck.
And that’s not to mention the extra time spent on daily upkeep and keeping track of who’s doing what inside the spreadsheet. Ugh.
Making it look pretty
Well, we hate to break it to you, especially because we are BIG fans of beautiful-but-unnecessary spreadsheet features, but prettying up a spreadsheet can take HOURS. Days, sometimes.
And while that may make things marginally easier for your future self… it’s just not the best use of your time as a business owner.
When a formula breaks
Double checking your work
Even when everything’s running smoothly, you still have to double check your work, especially when you have a lot of products to wade through.
Let’s say you have multiple columns, and you’re trying to add together all your various costs, big and small. So you set up your sum formula, and select all the columns you need to add up. This one plus that one plus this other one… until you get your total. And then that total goes onto another spreadsheet… but…
…did you miss a column?
Better go back and check to make sure. Aaaaaand #timesuck. 🙁
When the internet breaks
Fortunately, the “blue screen of death” is more or less a thing of the past—but that doesn’t mean you’re immune from losing your entire data set. And while this is less likely in Google sheets or other cloud-based platforms, there’s still a risk of losing your most recent changes in the event of an outage.
Plus, Google sheets don’t have as much functionality as Excel, so what you gain in backups you lose in usability.
Making spreadsheets to manage your spreadsheet
Ok, now we’re just getting ridiculous.
But what often happens is that you have one spreadsheet for all your raw data and formulas, and then ANOTHER spreadsheet where you can easily track your end results over time.
This might make sense in the short term, or when you only have a handful of products. But as you grow, the multiple-spreadsheets thing is going to become a major issue.
So, listen.
When you switch from spreadsheets to SellerVue, you’ll be amazed at how much time it saves you. Learn more on about SellerVue’s cost tracking software and watch a demo Today!
