onlineleben - 8:53 pm on Nov 8, 2011 (gmt 0)

Just a few ideas that came to mind

as we approach the holiday season, isn't the conversion rate supposed to be going up?

in general, this should be true, but it depends also on the industry you are in. If you are talking about the site I know, then I think it is not really something you give away for xmas, so the trend is not with you.

...if I look at the MOST qualified traffic - that from the USA. Down 64% in conversions and down 23% in number of transactions.

Do they make use of a toll free number to call in and place their order? If 'yes', can you attribute these orders to the site?
An other idea is to compare US customer behaviour. Do you have many repeat customers who bought first time last year?

Regarding traffic in general: do you do separate tracking for both parts of the site?