Holiday Shopping Started?

Curious to see if you're seeing an increase in orders...

[shri]

We're pretty flat right now, I expect that the holiday shoppers will hit the online stores sometime this and next week.

Are you seeing the same?

[ItsAllBallBearings]

nope, calm before the storm. We usually send out an e-newsletter with a coupon good until T-giving. That helps balance out the rush a little bit. People still wait until cyber monday to get going though.

[BananaFish]

Don't worry about a flat November, You won't really hit hard till Dec, procrastination is the American way.

[shri]

>> We usually send out an e-newsletter with a coupon
>> good until T-giving

and

>> procrastination

Great tips. We've just isolated all North American orders over the last year and are going to prepare a coupon for them.

[ItsAllBallBearings]

ummm, its officially begun now...like someone flipped a switch on 11/15.

i'm going to go to work now and probably wont come up for air until January. G.L. everyone

[Stores]

We're seeing toy and gift stores up already, but most of the rest are still very quiet so far.

[RedWolf]

Our sales atarted picking up at the first of the month, and are increasing this week. Hopefully yhe trend will continue.

[budgie]

Started about 15 November and has been steadily increasing since. Slightly earlier than last year for us, so hopefully that's a good sign!

[rj87uk]

Just like to add what a weekend we had!

I think (now - 20/11/06) it has started.

[8foldpath]

I second that. I'm seeing a huge increase of weekend orders, especially Sunday orders. Usually Sunday is a very low volume day. Yesterday (Sunday) was one of my highest volume days ;) .. As borat would say.. Is nice!

[ItsAllBallBearings]

high five!

[shri]

One thing.. if you do PPC, then do NOT bid outside your delivery area.

I'm seeing such high bids from merchants in the US, in searches on Asia, where they don't deliver.

Looks like rush is on.

Doing well on adsense, product sales and affiliate. Better than last year which was a bit of a disaster on many fronts.

[blend27]

Yep, today S*** hit the Fan(BIG FAN), all over the place and I am smiling :)

[bekyed]

Good for you lot.
The UK is pretty dead as usual.
:(

[rj87uk]

I do PPC for UK only so no problem there.

I am seeing some higher bids but this year I will be targeting high profit products that no many other people have just to get the max out of December.

[FalseDawn]

Good for you lot.
The UK is pretty dead as usual.
:(

Sales still fairly flat for me (US). Traffic is up by around 20%, but I don't expect sales to start taking off until Monday and into December, when people realise there's only 3 weeks left :-)

[Rugles]

I am seeing the same thing as falsedawn. Monday is expected to be a BIG day.

[CernyM]

This week we've had two of our biggest days ever, but they coincided with our annual friends & family sale, which always generates big numbers.

Looking at previous years, we normally get hit pretty intensely for a few days in December, but our busy season really doesn't start until after the holidays.

[ItsAllBallBearings]

we went off the charts last week , but have seen a lull during the t-giving holiday...oh well, guess thats to be expected.

[Mungo]

I'm in the UK, and this week has been crazy, i haven't been able to keep up with demand on certain products. Last week was the same.

Already smashed last Novembers sales total, with a week to go.

[drhfinegifts]

Yes, this week has been outstanding for us as well.

I actually had more sales on T-day than on Black Friday....guess most folks were at the mall. I think that is odd since we usually slow to a halt on any major holiday.

Today it has picked up again and going strong. I think this holiday shopping season will be much better than last year!

[Miop]

Our sales are still pretty flat - I don't know if that's because this year we have so many more competitors online, or because people aren't spending (supposed to be the worst Christmas retail sales for 25 years or something...)
Anyone else in the Uk experiencing disappointing sales?

[clayduck]

Miop

I run a UK only niche ecommerce site and sales are pretty flat - lots of users viewing and traffic has been up (we hit #2 for a few generic keywords in last Google update/refresh)

We launched late last year and we saw a small rush of orders after Christmas and in the January period. Hoping that trend is repeated this year too - fingers crossed.

hope that helps

[jecasc]

Usually we experience about 30 percent more sales than average around this time of the year. However this year its 100% up and we are hardly able to cope with the amount of orders. Don't know whats this all about. First I thought it had to do with the VAT rise of 3% here in Germany in 2007 but our international orders have doubled too so thats unlikely. Seems like many europeans are on a spending spree this year.

[fiu88]

Nice to hear jecasc....we're seeing it pretty flat year over year

[adamnichols45]

I cant wait untill next year and really start churning some numbers out

[pbradish]

Our sales volume went up an extra 100% this holiday season. I think that the rush may be over now (hopefully, so I can get all caught up).

[oldpro]

Today is a very slow day...hopefully the rush is over so I can come up for air.

[rocknbil]

Only one order today, NOT asking for delivery by Christmas, but the wife is running herself ragged at the brick half of her business. :-)

[CernyM]

We were very busy from Black Friday until the 18th. Yesterday was brisk with last minute shoppers. Today has also been brisk and we expect tomorrow to be reasonably so with last minute shoppers.