Below are 8 specific checks you can perform with your sales data to see where untapped opportunities lie.
1. Identify customers whose purchases have started to decline
Compare each customer's purchases over the last 3-6 months with the previous same period. Select those whose total purchase volume has decreased, for example, by 20% or more.
It's important not to wait until a customer stops purchasing completely. If previously they were buying €10,000 per month and now purchasing €7,000, it's worth finding out the reasons.
2. Find customers whose average order value has decreased
A customer may purchase just as frequently as before, so everything looks normal in the order flow. However, each of their orders may be significantly smaller.
Compare the average order value over the last 3-6 months with the previous same period and identify customers whose average order has decreased, for example, by 20% or more.
Then check what specifically has changed: quantities decreased, certain items disappeared, or an entire product group.
3. Identify customers approaching a repeat order
Based on order history, calculate how often a specific customer typically purchases.
If an order is typically repeated every 60 days, and 55 days have passed since the last purchase, this may be the right time for a sales manager to reach out.
Create a list of customers who should have their regular repeat purchase time within the next 7-14 days. With many customers, such a list can be generated automatically by the system.
4. Compare a customer with similar companies
Group customers of similar activity and size, then compare them in two dimensions.
First - annual purchase volume. If five similar companies purchase an average of €50,000 per year, and the sixth - €15,000, it's worth finding out the reason for such a difference.
Second - product groups. If similar customers regularly purchase four groups, but a specific customer - only one or two, it's worth checking whether they purchase the rest from other suppliers. You can start simply: select the 20 largest customers and mark which main product groups they purchase from you.
Not every difference means an untapped opportunity. However, such comparison quickly shows which customers have the greatest potential and helps reasonably plan annual targets for specific customers.
5. Find products that customers most often buy together
Review the most frequently repeated orders and find product or service combinations that consistently recur.
If, for example, 70% of product A buyers also purchase product B, it's worth identifying customers who regularly buy A but never buy B.
This is already a specific upsell list, not a general offer to the entire customer base.
6. Check where order value can be increased
Take orders from the last few months and count how many stopped just short of the threshold from which the customer receives a better price, free delivery, or other more favorable terms.
If free delivery applies from €500, and a significant portion of orders end at €430-490, it's worth clearly showing the customer how much is needed to reach this threshold.
The same can be applied to volume discounts, larger packages, or other pricing conditions.
7. Review discounts that no longer match purchase volumes
Individual terms are usually granted under specific circumstances: when negotiating a large order, starting cooperation, or responding to a competitor's offer. Circumstances change, but terms often remain valid indefinitely.
Create a table where you can see the discount applied to each customer and the actual purchase volume over the last 12 months. Select those whose discount was justified by volumes that no longer exist today.
This doesn't mean terms should be changed for everyone. Some customers are strategically important regardless of current volume. However, the list itself shows how much the company allocates annually to discounts for which they no longer receive what they were granted for.
8. Calculate how many new customers place a second order
Take all customers who purchased for the first time in the last 12 months and check how many returned for a second order.
If you received 100 new customers in a year, but only 35 purchased a second time, it's worth looking not only for more new customers, but also for the reason why the remaining 65 didn't return.
Compare returning and non-returning customers: what they bought, how large the first order was, who served them, and how much time passed until the second purchase. This can reveal very specific places where repeat sales are lost.
Required data and conditions for performing these checks
The first attempt to perform such analysis often stops not at calculations, but at data. The same customer is entered in the system under multiple names, product groups are assigned inconsistently, and some individual terms exist only in email.
Before starting, it's worth cleaning up customer duplicates, standardizing product grouping, and transferring individual customer terms to one system. Otherwise, it will be difficult to trust the analysis results.
Check automation
The first time, all eight checks can be performed using available sales data. This is useful just to find out which signals in your business actually help find additional sales.
The threshold at which manual work stops being worthwhile depends not on the number of customers, but on how often the check needs to be repeated. Comparison with similar customers or discount review makes sense once per quarter or year, so they can be done manually. Declining volumes and approaching repeat orders need to be seen weekly, and at that frequency, spreadsheets stop working very quickly.
It's precisely the frequently repeated checks that are worth automating in CRM, customer self-service, B2B order portal, or other company system. Then the sales manager no longer needs to analyze hundreds of customers - they receive a specific list of who is worth contacting, why, and what sales opportunity the system has detected.