This week no one is shopping online

[stiksandstones]

Can anyone compare? Last week on my google ad clicks stats I had about 100 clicks with 5000 or so impressions, so far this week havent broke 1000 for impressions and few clicks.
I still had a few orders (new to ecommerce so give me a break-haha) but traffic is lighter than usual on my site and even for the search terms/keywords in google ad clicks-anyone else?

And is there a site that shows how much traffic in general the internet is seeing on a given day?

[derekwong28]

Our sales are surprisingly slow for the beginning of a month. I was wondering whether the Pope's death could have such a significant impact.

[OlRedEye]

Ditto.. Traffic remains normal though....

[Deab]

Sales have been low for us the last couple of weeks, then yesterday we had our highest number of orders/day to date.

It's been Easter break in the UK, that may have something to do with it (kids get 2 weeks off).

[sharbel]

Yep, our 2 e-commerce sites have been very slow the last few days. I actually came to this forum to see if anyone else is having issues.. Our combined sales are down roughly 30-50% the last few days, which is very unusual.

[curlykarl]

Bizarre, we are incredibly busy, busier than we have ever been in fact.

We have hit the half way mark on our monthly target and its only the 7th of the month.

Not complaining though :)

Karl

[stiksandstones]

You must sell pope memoribilia? ;-)

[HRoth]

I too came by to see if anyone else was having a slowdown. Last month I did twice as much business as usual. The past two days I have had few orders, even though traffic is the same as usual. So I am working on the site.

[sem4u]

Sales are going through the roof here :)

[DonQ]

Strange animal - ecomm

[Easy_Coder]

Extremeley busy for me on Sat - Wed. Today was back to average.

[GarryBoyd]

If you are B to B, March 31 is the end of the financial year for many businesses. They have leftover budget money to get rid of, and many small businesses prefer to spend profits instead of paying tax.
March is always strong for me, while April goes quiet for a couple of weeks.

[EstoreSeeker]

it seems that heaven has changed the fate of ecom-people for some time. some of us here getting more traffic than usual and some very low indeed. And while pope has never showed much interest in e-com…sure had some good affect on it. May god bless his soul with peace.
amen.

[minnapple]

Some major software firewall filters have started to block second and third party cookies.

This stops users from putting a second or more items into their shopping cart.

I don't see this changing, it will become the norm.
Time to look a your store's technology.

[hannamyluv]

If you have enough sales data, comare to last year this month, not to last month. Their are many variables inside the months in a year that make it unwise to compare sales month to month.

Traditionally, this is the begining of the slow season on the web, with warm weather and summer events drawing people away from their computers.

If you sell a product that people would use for the summer, you may see a rise, but for the most part, everyone will see a dip in sales.

The death of the pope and political stuff in the UK may be adding to the decline, in addition to the poor economic outlook in the US (Gas prices are skyrocketing and a new bankruptcy law making it harder to declare bankruptcy will most likely pass into law in a few weeks.) But be aware, all sensational type stories will affect sales. The Terri Shivo(sp?) thing here in the US probably started the media effect downturn with the pope's death topping it off.

July or so, you should start to see a rise in sales again with the heat driving people back into their houses (and to computers).

By September, you should see even more as kids are back in school and cold weather sets in.

October will bring the begining of the Christmas season. You will most likely see a rise in traffic with only a slight lift in sales, but never fear, people are making their lists and checking them twice.

Begining of November, Sales go through the roof as the early shoppers return to buy and the later ones get started.

December, as we all know, the feeding frenzy is in full throttle with a brick wall happening Decmeber 21st or so, unless you offer overnight delivery.

Sales then shoot back up January 2nd (though not to Nov/Dec highs) as people go out and spend the money they got for xmas or simply buy themselves whatever they did not get for xmas (don't you just love a consumption society?).

This will go on with a slow decline until April, when spring weather turns peopls minds from shopping to enjoying the sunshine.

There, an Ecomm year in review, for those of you who are new to it. BTW, this a "typical cycle", but it may vary by industry. This is just meant to give you a rough idea of why you shouldn't compare this month to last month. It is always best to use your own historical data and become familer with your own sites cyclical nature (and they ALL have cyclical natures). If you compare this April to last April and sales are worse, you have a problem.

[larryhatch]

In the USA at least, state and federal income taxes are
due April 15th. That must have a chilling effect for
some people. - Larry

[luckychucky]

My sales and traffic are down a lot for the first week of April, too.

Nobody so far has mentioned April 15, USA's income tax filing deadline - if you're looking for a possible damper on sales...

[ah, larryhatch, you beat me to it by a few minutes. If I didn't preview so much I woulda been first!]

[beautykat]

My business operates in the US. I like this part of tax filings. March was a record month for us, maybe those who just received their refund are spending it like crazy. Those who waited till Apr are likely to be paying taxes, they are holding on to their $$. Those who have received their refund probably spent it all already.

hannamyluv: think you done a great job in explaining a typical cycle. But I have one observation, last year's Nov and Dec were terrible for us. With so much discounts and attention from the retail stores, we just cannot compete. Does anyone has the same observation with us?

[hannamyluv]

I personally always consider tax season to be a wash. For every person you have paying taxes, you have one who got a tax reinburstment that they are itching to spend.

I personally, looking at the information publisized by the major retailers and that of sites I have had involvment with, have not seen brick & mortar discounts to be an issue overall. Of course, as stated, industries vary.

[centrifugal]

Amazing that so many are saying they've had record sales March, as two of my sites did twice their normal sales, and for my retail site business is totally dead this month.

[LostOne]

Sales are okay here, but I expect a pretty slow week this week. I too was wondering not about sales but overall traffic. No rankings change over the last two weeks. At first I thought it was the Pope after looking at my stats on Friday morning--down considerably. Then the weekend rolls in and the stats are just as bad--even adwords traffic is down substantially.

Tax season here in the US. Yup, makes sense. Start of baseball season can add to it. Afterall when colleege football kicks in every year Saturdays really take a beating. Warmer weather after winter also seems to have an effect.

Let's not forget the kids getting out of school/plan summer events doldrums in May/June.

[Dim Chandelier]

I'd like to hear more about the firewall/cookies issue mentioned by Minneapple. We've had a lot of complaints just recently from ppl having trouble completing there orders.

[moneymancn]

< I'd like to hear more about the firewall/cookies issue mentioned by Minneapple. We've had a lot of complaints just recently from ppl having trouble completing there orders.>

We just had the same problem three times!
We have put a notice on the site with various solutions.
Thought it was our cart as we had just had to re-install it but maybe it was the firewalls after all.
MM

[Deab]

I can't see the point in a firewall policy that only allows 1 cookied from a site. A size restriction maybe, but just 1 cookied?

I've seen visitors that carry an ID cookie, but not the tracking session ID cookie. Does appear to be a case of only supporting 1 cookie. Would also like to know more..

Maybe we should move to writing 1 actual cookie that contains everything we need to store. If I ever get the time I might try that.