Sales Drop: How to Find the Cause and What to Do First

First, confirm the decline is real

Compare the current period with the same period last year if you have that history, not just with last month. In Uzbekistan demand moves with Ramadan, Navruz, the wedding season, summer heat and the start of the school year. A clothing shop in Samarkand and a delivery service in Tashkent live through the same month very differently.

Then check the numbers themselves. Are all channels counted: the till, Telegram orders, Uzum, OLX, wholesale shipments? Did you change your POS or CRM? How many working days and holidays did the period have? Sometimes the “collapse” is simply orders that ended up in another spreadsheet. In B2B, one large client postponing a purchase can change the whole picture.

Break revenue into its parts

Revenue is the number of buyers multiplied by average order value and by how often they buy. Find which part fell and the search narrows immediately:

• Fewer new customers: look at acquisition or at how enquiries turn into sales.
• Fewer repeat purchases: look at quality, service and what competitors offer.
• Lower average order value: check the range, upselling and whether customers have started to save.

Walk the funnel from enquiry to payment

If new customers are the problem, follow the buyer’s path step by step and ask one question at each stage: what could be broken here?

• Ads and map listings: was an ad rejected, has the account balance run out, are the phone and address still correct.
• Website and forms: does the page open on a phone, do requests arrive, do Click and Payme payments go through.
• First reply: how fast do you answer in Instagram Direct and Telegram, how many calls go unanswered.
• Consultation: which objection comes up most — “too expensive”, “I’ll think about it”, “it’s cheaper elsewhere”.
• After the sale: returns, complaints, delivery times.

Look at the market and at your own changes

External causes include a new competitor nearby, an aggressive promotion from someone else, higher supplier prices and shifts in buyer habits. This is easy to test: ask peers in your industry whether they see the same pattern or whether it is only you.

Internal causes are the ones people forget. A strong salesperson left, the supplier changed, prices went up without any explanation of value, a bestseller ran out, opening hours changed. List everything that changed in recent months and compare it with the date the decline began.

The fastest source of truth is your customers. Call a few who used to buy regularly and have gone quiet, and ask without pressure what changed and where they buy now. Five honest conversations often tell you more than a week of guessing over spreadsheets.

What to do first when you see a sales drop

Once the cause is found, the action is usually obvious: a broken channel gets repaired, lost enquiries get recovered, and a product flaw is fixed rather than hidden behind advertising. If the picture is still unclear, a few steps are useful almost every time:

• Fix anything technically broken: forms, phone numbers, ad accounts, payment.
• Call back people who left a request or said “I’ll think about it” and never bought.
• Write personally to regular customers with a specific offer, not a mass message.
• Check that your fast-moving products are actually in stock and on display.
• Temporarily put more effort into the channel that is bringing orders right now.

What not to do

Do not announce a blanket discount before you know the cause: it eats margin and trains customers to wait for promotions, while the real problem stays. Do not raise the ad budget if enquiries are already getting lost at the sales stage. Do not change ten things at once, or you will never know what helped. And do not blame people before you have looked at funnel data, because the fault is often in the process, not the person.

How to spot the next decline sooner

Keep a simple weekly report: enquiries, conversion to sale, average order value and the share of repeat purchases. A small dip noticed in the first week is far easier to correct than a deep slump discovered at the end of the quarter.

If you cannot untangle it yourself or your data is scattered, the markdev team can help set up the diagnosis and a marketing strategy for your niche. Describe the situation and we will look together at where the money is leaking.