The online sector has been slowly eating up market share in the past two decades. E-commerce platforms like Unicorn allow people to buy products online: from books, toys, clothes, and shoes to food, furniture, and other household items. The following dataset includes Unicorn sales data from the years 2015-2018.

Unicorn was a family business owned by 2 entrepreneurs highly invested in their business. They already had a small data analytics team but wanted a fresh pair of eyes to investigate their operations to find profitable areas and those that needed intervention.

My task was to analyze the data, find interesting insights and identify weak areas and opportunities for Unicorn to boost business growth.

Find attached below, the python notebook with the SQL queries used for exploring and analyzing the dataset.

Note: The notebook opens on GitHub

Notebook for SQL Queries

Reporting Insights from Profits Analysis via Tableau

Key findings from the sum-of-profits-over-time dashboard include:

• In 2018, the most recent year, company Profits steadily increased with a major peak in March (bringing in $14,758 in total profits and a total 58,880 in sales).

• Observing from the beginning period, there was a steady increase in both total profits and total sales across all states and product categories; and sales seemed to have been positively correlated with the discounts.

• Technology was the product category that made up most of the profits and sales.

• However, Furniture performed the worst, and the worst year was 2016 with the average monthly sales declining and profits remaining stagnant. Even considering the total sales for furniture, profits remained stagnant.

Recommendation(s) based on findings from the sum-of-profits-over-time dashboard include:

• Further analysis of sales and cost required in the furniture category to help identify why profits have been stagnant for 4 years.

Key findings from the profits-by-state dashboard include:

• California, New York, and Washington state were the 3 most profitable states across all years.

• While Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were the worst performing states, with Texas having a total loss of -$25,714 across all years.

• Regarding product categories, Technology was the most profitable category for the company while furniture was the least profitable across all years.

• Regarding the number of customers per state, California, New York, and Texas were amongst the top ranking states.

Recommendation(s) based on findings from the profits-by-state dashboard include:

• Investigate Texas further to determine why it was so far below in profits, especially because Texas is Unicorn’s 3rd largest customer base

• Overall, replicate the strategies used in profitable states to nearby states, so we can grow profits for the company across board.

Key findings from the profits-by-customer-segment dashboard include:

• The 'Consumers' segment was the company’s biggest segment both in terms of profits as well as quantity ordered.

• Across all customer segments the 'Standard Class' shipping mode was** the most used & profitable, while 'Same Day' was the least used & profitable.

• The shipping mode with the highest profit per unit was 'First Class'

• Typically in Fall and Summer seasons, 'Consumers' segment tend to make up over 50% of the total customers.

• Drilling down on Texas reveals that the company lost most of its profits in all customer segments, and shipping modes for all categories except Technology.

Recommendation(s) based on findings from the profits-by-customer-segment dashboard include:

• To increase profits in general, promote the First Class shipping mode to more customers, as this yields the highest profit per unit across all products.

• Further investigate the performance of the shipping modes and it's impact on profits in Texas, particularly in the Furniture and Office Supply categories.

To view the live interactive Tableau Dashboard. See link below

Tableau Interactive Dashboard