Recently, ASA member Bob Sullivan called concerning a specific annual sales categories' average number of repair orders reflected in the 2001 “How's Your Business?” survey. Bob made a great point. If you take the average number of repair orders and multiply that by the average ticket price, and then multiply that by 52 weeks in a year, the annual sales categories don't necessarily match up.

Why is that? Well, it's the law of averages. We were multiplying averages. Talking it out and working as a team, Bob and I were able to solve this question. He used three example shops to show how the number of repair orders varies. Shop A has a $100 average ticket price and does 50 repair orders per week. That's the same as Shop B that has a $200 average ticket price and does 25 repair orders per week. Finally, that's the same as Shop C that has a $333 average ticket price and does 15 repair orders per week. So, although the total sales are the same, the averages differ.

The average number of repair orders per week has come full circle since 1997. In 1997 the average number of repair orders was 64. It rose to 70 in 1998 and then fell to 57 in 1999. In 2000, 65 repair orders per week were the average and in 2001 we've come back to 64 repair orders per week.

Stat Corner is written by Denise Caspersen, ASA's research management specialist. She can be reached at (800) 272-7467, ext. 236.

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