# Performance review — Ecommerce

The performance review with the columns a store needs: every line reviewed by catalogue segment, results read on kept orders rather than orders, and causes that include the three things a platform's reporting cannot see — stock, margin and returns.

Everything else is the general review, unchanged. Planned from the plan, variance separated from cause, cause held to evidence, one decision with one owner and a date.

## How to use it

1. Copy this file, or the CSV version if you would rather work in a sheet.
2. Take the planned figures from the plan, not from memory.
3. Write one row per line the plan had, including the ones that went as expected.
4. Separate the variance from the cause, and the cause from the decision.
5. Where a cause is not known, write that instead of a plausible story.
6. Give every decision an owner and a next review date, in the room.
7. Keep the finished reviews: a year of them answers questions no single one can.

## The columns

**Period** (Text). The window being reviewed, with its dates and the promotion window it sits inside. A store's periods are lumpy, and a review that does not say whether a sale was in the window is not comparable to anything.

**Line reviewed** (Text). The catalogue segment being reviewed, matching the plan. A campaign's average across best sellers and the long tail describes neither, and the decision taken on it is wrong for both.

**Planned spend** (Integer). What the plan said this segment would spend, in minor units, taken from the plan rather than recalculated. Retail plans are revised often, so the figure has to come from the version that was approved.

**Actual spend** (Integer). The spend that actually happened, in the same units and the same currency. In a store the gap is frequently about pacing within the period rather than the total, which is why the flight plan is read beside this.

**Planned result** (Text). The primary metric and its target from the plan, with the segment's margin beside it. Two segments hitting the same cost per order have not produced the same contribution.

**Actual result** (Text). What it produced, on the same metric, read on kept orders where returns are material. The source is the store's own system, not the platform's reported revenue, and the two will not agree.

**Variance** (Text). The difference on spend and on result, stated plainly. Where the result is still provisional because returns have not landed, say so here rather than presenting it as final.

**Cause** (Text). Why, as far as the evidence supports, and in a store the three causes reporting cannot see come first: a stock event, a returns effect, a delivery cut-off. Any of them looks like fatigue and none of them is.

**Evidence** (Text). The export and the window the cause rests on, plus the stock and returns records where they are part of it. A cause naming a sell-out needs the date the stock ran out.

**Decision** (Text). Continue, change the weight, change the segment split, or investigate. A store has a fourth common decision — hold for the promotion — and it should be written as change with the window named.

**Owner** (Text). Who carries the decision, by name. Segment-split decisions usually belong with the trading manager rather than the media buyer, and assigning them in the room is what makes them happen.

**Next review** (Date (YYYY-MM-DD)). When this row is looked at again, which for anything read on orders means after the returns from this cohort have landed. That second date is the one that decides what the period actually produced.

**Notes** (Text). What the next reader needs: the line that sold out, the promotion that pulled demand forward, the delivery cut-off, the competitor sale that moved the auction for a fortnight.

## The performance review

| Period | Line reviewed | Planned spend | Actual spend | Planned result | Actual result | Variance | Cause | Evidence | Decision | Owner | Next review | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

## Before you commit it

- Every row is reviewed at the level of a catalogue segment.
- Results are read on kept orders where returns are material.
- Stock events during the period are recorded against the rows they affected.
- Margin is stated for every segment being judged on a cost per order.
- Variance, cause and decision are in separate columns.
- Every decision has an owner by name and a next review date.
- Anything that distorted the period is recorded in the notes.