Elegantly Graph Ranks Per Region with Sales Figures

[ninaking]

Hi,

I'm trying to elegantly show all of the rankings for my sales regions in one chart. The only thing I could come up with was a line chart (I know, lame!). Any suggestions?

Computers	Industrial	Vehicles	Retail
Origin	Dest	Sales	Rank	Origin	Dest	Sales	Rank	Origin	Dest	Sales	Rank	Origin	Dest	Sales	Rank
Region1	Region1	1,581	1	Region2	Region1	1,166	1	Region2	Region1	362	1	Region1	Region2	1,039	1
Region1	Region2	890	2	Region2	Region2	1,075	2	Region2	Region2	276	2	Region2	Region2	814	2
Region1	Region3	802	3	Region1	Region1	940	3	Region2	Region3	270	3	Region1	Region1	622	3
Region2	Region1	226	4	Region1	Region2	751	4	Region1	Region2	227	4	Region1	Region3	517	4
Region3	Region1	204	5	Region3	Region1	740	5	Region1	Region1	206	5	Region2	Region1	416	5
Region1	Region4	166	6	Region3	Region2	674	6	Region3	Region2	186	6	Region4	Region3	274	6
Region2	Region2	160	7	Region2	Region3	449	7	Region1	Region3	183	7	Region4	Region2	222	7
Region3	Region4	153	8	Region2	Region4	381	8	Region2	Region4	127	8	Region2	Region3	174	8
Region3	Region2	150	9	Region1	Region3	341	9	Region3	Region4	126	9	Region3	Region1	172	9
Region2	Region3	120	10	Region3	Region4	318	10	Region3	Region1	126	10	Region3	Region2	153	10
Region2	Region4	38	11	Region4	Region4	123	11	Region4	Region3	104	11	Region2	Region4	114	11
Region4	Region1	32	12	Region4	Region2	104	12	Region4	Region2	62	12	Region4	Region4	102	12
Region4	Region4	28	13	Region1	Region4	91	13	Region4	Region4	51	13	Region1	Region4	100	13
Region4	Region2	21	14	Region4	Region1	60	14	Region1	Region4	39	14	Region3	Region4	83	14
Region4	Region3	19	15	Region4	Region3	46	15	Region4	Region1	32	15	Region4	Region1	41	15

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[Gerald Higgins]

Personally, I think I would use bar charts, one for each category - so one for "Computers", another for "Industrial" and so on.

I don't think I would bother with charting the rankings themselves, just the absolute sales figure.
You could sequence the regions in order of sales, which would allow users to determine the ranking themselves.
And I would guess people are really only interested in the top 3 or 5, few will care about the difference between 13, 14 and 15, so it won't matter too much if it's difficult to tell that a specific region is ranked 14th or 15th.
You could also consider NOT sequencing the regions in order of sales - keep the regions in the same sequence in each chart, so that it is easier to find any one region in all the charts.
Keep all the charts close together, to allow people to compare them with each other.

You could also consider a stacked bar chart, but I think with data like your's that would be too complicated. It might LOOK good, and people might be impressed with your Excel skills, but if you really want people to understand the data, then I would avoid that for a chart like this.

You could also look at various charting websites for inspiration - here's one.
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/ChartIndex.html