Most advice about shop metrics is written for stores that sell the same product a thousand times. A vintage shop is different. Every piece sells once, so there's no "best-selling product" to restock, and one great sale can make a month look better than it was. The useful questions are about patterns: which kinds of pieces move, how long they take, what you keep, and where your buyers come from.
Here's how to analyze your shop's sales, one number at a time: what each one means, what good looks like, and what to do about it.
How VYA helps with your numbers: every VYA plan has an Analytics page and a Sold page that work these out from your own sales for you. Studio and Pro add Full analytics, which digs into what sells by brand, era and size, whether price drops worked, and more. See what's included.
1. Sell-through rate
Sell-through is the share of what you listed that actually sold. It's the best single sign of whether you're buying the right stock at the right prices.
Sell-through rate = pieces sold ÷ (pieces sold + pieces still listed)
Say you sold 36 pieces in the last 90 days and 84 are still listed: 36 ÷ (36 + 84) = 30%.
There's no single right number, because a rack of $20 tees and a rack of $800 coats behave very differently. The honest benchmark is your own shop last quarter, over the same length of time. If sell-through is falling while you list more, you're buying faster than you sell. If it's very high and pieces go within days, you may be pricing too low.
VYA shows this as "How much sold" at the top of Analytics, with the change against the period before. The Sold page also shows sell-through for pieces you listed in the last 90 days.
2. Inventory turnover: how fast pieces sell
Inventory turnover is how quickly your stock sells and gets replaced. For a one-of-a-kind shop, the clearest way to see it is days to sell: how long a piece sat between listing and selling. Use the typical piece (the middle value), not the average. One coat that took a year drags an average up and hides the fact that most things go in three weeks.
Your typical days to sell tells you what "slow" means in your shop. A piece up for twice that long is worth a second look, and so is anything older than 90 days. Try fresh photos, a better title or a new collection before you touch the price. Some pieces are just seasonal: a wool coat in July isn't failing.
VYA shows your typical days to sell on Analytics and the Sold page, lists pieces up more than 90 days under "Sitting the longest", and flags pieces still up past twice your usual time for that brand or category.
3. Average sale price, margin and what each piece cost
Three numbers belong together: what you ask, what you actually get, and what you keep.
- Average asking price is what your stock is listed at.
- Average sold price is what buyers really paid, after offers and discounts. Well under your asking price means your prices are optimistic or you say yes to offers too easily.
- Margin is what's left after what you paid. Revenue tells you how busy you were. Margin tells you whether it was worth it.
Margin needs a cost on every piece, and that's where vintage sellers get stuck, because you rarely buy one piece at a time. The simplest fair method is to split a haul's cost across its pieces in proportion to their prices. Say you paid $300 for 20 pieces and priced them at $1,200 in total. Each piece carries a quarter of its price as cost, so a $100 jacket carries $25 and a $20 top carries $5.
VYA does the arithmetic for you. In Inventory, select the pieces from a haul and set their cost, the same on each or one total split by price. The Profit tab on Analytics then shows profit, margin and profit per sale, with VYA fees, estimated card processing, shipping labels and your running costs taken off. The Sold page shows your typical margin and margin by brand.
4. Which listings do well: views, saves and sales
Views and saves tell you what people want before they buy, and they help you tell a pricing problem from a listing problem.
| What you see | What it usually means | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| Few views | People aren't finding it. | A clearer title, a stronger first photo, the right category. |
| Lots of views, few saves | They find it and move on. | Check photos, measurements and condition notes. |
| Lots of saves, no sale | They want it, but not at this price. | A small price drop. |
| Added to a bag, not bought | Something at checkout stopped them. | Look at the shipping cost they were shown. |
Conversion, the share of visits that end in a sale, is usually low for a one-of-one shop, often well under 2%, because people browse vintage the way they browse a shop floor. Watch which way it's moving rather than the number itself.
Your most viewed and most saved pieces this month are your trending pieces. They show what's catching eyes right now, which helps when you're buying and when you choose what goes at the top of your homepage.
VYA shows a viewed, saved, bought funnel on the Analytics overview, and its Products tab lists your best sellers, most viewed and most saved pieces, and the ones nobody is looking at. These are views and saves of your pieces on VYA, not likes on other marketplaces. On Studio and Pro, Full analytics adds pieces viewed a lot but not bought, pieces left in a bag, and which details, like measurements, help your pieces sell.
5. Best sellers by category, brand, era and size
For one-of-a-kind stock, a best seller isn't one piece. It's the kind of piece that sells most reliably. Judge each group by sell-through and days to sell, not just revenue.
| Era | Listed | Sold | Sell-through | Typical days to sell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970s | 40 | 18 | 45% | 16 |
| 1990s | 60 | 15 | 25% | 34 |
| 2000s | 30 | 3 | 10% | 58 |
The 1990s rack is the biggest, so it can feel like your best seller. But the 1970s pieces sell nearly twice as reliably and twice as fast. That's where more of your buying budget should go, and the 2000s rack is where to be choosier. Be careful with small groups, though: wait until at least five of something have sold before you change how you buy.
On every plan, VYA shows your top brands and categories, what you stock against what sells, and which brands and categories sell fastest. On Studio and Pro, Full analytics breaks down what sells by brand, era, category, size, colour and fabric, and after about 10 sales names what to buy more of and what's slow for you.
6. Where your pieces sell
If you sell on your own site, at markets and on marketplaces like eBay and Depop, compare them on what you keep, not on revenue. A marketplace with plenty of sales and a big fee can leave you less than fewer sales on your own site. For each place, look at how many pieces sold, the typical sale and what you kept after fees. Then ask whether your best pieces are selling where they earn you the most.
For your own site, also look at where visitors come from. A source that sends a few people who buy beats one that sends crowds who don't.
VYA's Sold page shows how many pieces sold in each place and what they made, and the Visitors tab shows how people found your site. On Studio and Pro, Full analytics adds fees and what you typically keep in each place, which sources send people who buy, and where checkout loses people. Cross-listing, also on Studio and Pro, has its own Analytics page showing what's listed, sold and earned on each marketplace.
7. Repeat customers
Someone who loves your eye will come back for every drop. Your repeat rate is the share of buyers who have bought more than once. Watch it alongside how long it's been since your best customers last bought. If someone who used to buy every month has gone quiet for three, a personal note about new pieces in their size is often all it takes.
VYA's Customers tab shows how many buyers came back, new against returning buyers, and your best customers by what they've spent. On Studio and Pro, Full analytics lists buyers who haven't bought in 90 days or more, with a link to email them. Buyer details come from sales through your VYA checkout.
8. Price drops and offers
It's easy to keep cutting prices without knowing if it works. After a drop, watch the next two weeks. Did the piece sell? Did views or bag adds go up? If small drops rarely change anything, try fewer, bigger ones, or better listings instead.
For offers, look at the typical offer as a share of your price. If most land around 80%, you know how much room to build in when you list.
On every plan, VYA's Prices tab shows how much of your asking price you keep. On Studio and Pro, Full analytics shows what happened in the two weeks after each price drop, grouped by how much you lowered it, plus your typical offer as a share of your price and how many you accepted.
A monthly check, in ten minutes
- Sell-through against last month.
- Pieces past your typical days to sell.
- Profit and margin, with costs added for new stock.
- Pieces nobody looks at, and pieces saved but not bought.
- The categories, brands and eras that sold best.
- Buyers who haven't been back in a while.
How VYA helps
VYA is shop software built for one-of-one pieces, and it works these numbers out from your own sales for you:
- Analytics on every plan. Revenue, sell-through, days to sell, sold prices, top brands and categories, customers and visitors, each compared with the period before.
- A Sold page that reads your sales back. What sells fastest, what helps a piece sell, where it sold, and what's past its usual time.
- Profit you can trust. Set a cost on each piece or split a haul across them, and see margin after fees.
- Full analytics on Studio and Pro. What sells by brand, era, size and more, what to buy more of, whether price drops worked, and offers.
Analytics is on every plan, including Starter at $49 a month. Full analytics is on Studio at $129 and Pro at $199.
Common questions
How do I calculate sell-through rate?
What is a good sell-through rate for a vintage store?
How do I work out the cost of each piece from a haul?
How many sales do I need before my numbers mean anything?
Examples in this guide are made up to show the arithmetic. Your own numbers are the ones to go by.