Like-For-Like Sales

It’s time for our annual shareholder meeting, and here at Claire V. Oyant Enterprises, we couldn’t be more excited. Ouija board and tarot card retail sales nationwide are up 54%, psychic consultant service sales are up 67%, and as far as we’re concerned, the otherworldly skies are the limit. Our company is growing, and it feels so good.

“But Dr. Oyant,” someone pipes up, totally ruining our chill, “it says right here on the financial statements that total sales this year are only half of what they were last year. How can we say we’re growing when our sales numbers are down?” “Puh-lease, brochacho,” we reply with a roll of the eyes. “Everybody knows we’re only supposed to compare like-for-like sales when looking at overall revenue growth trends.”

Like-for-like sales are just what they sound like: they’re sales of items that are like, or comparable. So we compare this year’s retail sales to last year’s retail sales, and this year's consultancy sales to last year’s consultancy sales. We don’t take into account unusual or one-off transactions that artificially inflate or deflate our overall sales numbers. And since we sold our subsidiary publishing company last year—their books were nothing but a bunch of hooey anyway—our total sales figure for the year looks a little inflated, even though, in reality, our product sales revenue is much higher this year.

Comparing like-for-like sales is also useful because it can help us see how various sectors of our business are doing. (That’s how we knew we needed to ditch the publishing company.) For example, if all of our stores in major metro areas are underperforming, we can start looking at the effect of population size and other factors on the success of our retail locations. But so far, it looks like no matter where the location is, business is booming. Who could have predicted that? Oh yeah—we could.