Seed Savers Exchange gains insights into trends, thanks to Luther College research team

Seed Savers Exchange managers are using an interactive sales data dashboard to analyze online orders by product, variety, customer and region, thanks to a summer research project conducted at Luther College.

Luther College professor Phil Iversen and Luther students Linh Nguyen and Armel Asopjio answer questions from Seed Savers Exchange’s employees during a meeting at Seed Savers Exchange’s headquarters.

Phil Iversen, associate professor of statistics at Luther, along with students Armel Asopjio and Linh Nguyen worked closely with Seed Savers Exchange staff members to examine seven years of sales data.

Through effective communication, technical expertise and a natural curiosity, the team interpreted the data in a way that Seed Savers Exchange employees have not had the time or opportunity to do.

“It’s really incredible what they’ve done. Phil, Armel and Linh exceeded our expectations when they created this interactive dashboard that we’ll get to use, manipulate and fine-tune,” said Meredith Burks, director of marketing and communications at Seed Savers Exchange.

The results were an overwhelming success and provided a long-term benefit to the Decorah-based nonprofit organization that ships seeds to customers throughout the United States and overseas.

“This dashboard allows us to look at our sales history and make data-informed decisions about different varieties that we bring in and identify any possible gaps,” Burks said. “As a marketing director, I want to be really efficient with our advertising dollars, and so being able to see the trends of sales and timing and what regions are purchasing when — this dashboard helps with all of that.”

The collaborative project first took root at a Decorah Rotary Club meeting last spring. During his presentation, Seed Savers Exchange Executive Director Mike Bollinger casually mentioned that the organization has a lot of data and they were exploring the best ways to interpret and leverage that information for broader insights.

“As a statistician, my ears perked up at the mention of data,” said Iversen, who is co-president of the Decorah Rotary Club. “After the presentation, I reached out to Mike and asked if we could work with Seed Savers Exchange to help them analyze their data and answer any questions they might have that they hadn’t been able to work on themselves.”

Within weeks, Iversen’s team was providing their expertise at no cost to Seed Savers Exchange. In turn, Asopjio and Nguyen benefited from the opportunity to put their classroom skills into practice.

“Luther strives to be engaged with the local community. This project is a great example of that,” Iversen said. “This project was also a great fit for Luther’s experiential learning requirement, where students can work on a real project for a real customer and provide benefit to the customer, but also learn new skills themselves. In this case, the summer research has been beneficial to both sides.”

Nguyen, who is a junior majoring in data science, statistics and business management, appreciated the opportunity to work on a meaningful project for a nonprofit organization.

“I saw how my work can have a direct impact. Seed Savers Exchange can use my data analysis to make decisions. I feel good about that,” she said.

Asopjio, a senior majoring in data science, enjoyed practicing his skills outside of the classroom.

“It’s crucial to have experiences in life — not just theory. This research project provided a real-world application of what we are learning in our classes,” Asopjio said.

Burks is looking forward to partnering with Luther in the future.

“I think it is really important to be able to offer real-life job experience to Luther students. This project was a great opportunity and I hope we can continue to do things like this, because it was incredibly beneficial to both parties,” she said.

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