February Is The Troublemaker Of The Year

I’m happy with February ending today.

February’s a fine month for the most part but the whole 28 days really makes metric tracking difficult.

If you held steady on everything for December, January, February, and March, you’d measure a 10% drop in February. Just due to it being 3 days shorter than the other months around it.

The difference between 30-day vs 31-day months is minor (~3%) but February… February really is the exception that throws a wrench into the works.

In Repeat Customer Insights I use years and quarters in the reports as much as possible to avoid the issue. Some things though have to measured monthly (monthly orders, monthly cohorts).

February’s lack of days is something to keep in mind as you’re closing out the month. Even a 10% drop in your store metrics aren’t worrisome in February.

(Sometimes I’ll try to use the daily amounts but that can be cumbersome and unusual. Most often it requires you to do some mental math to convert it into the monthly figure anyways)

Eric Davis