Sudden big jump in orders, can't figure it out

[dickbaker]

In my niche, website traffic slows in the summer, as do sales in brick-and-mortar stores as well as online stores.

The last several weeks have been extremely slow, with maybe one or two orders coming in each day.

Today was like someone had flipped a switch. I had about a dozen orders, which is a lot for a fledgling store like mine. And I can't figure out why. I don't see any changes in rankings for the search terms I've been targeting. And traffic seems to be about the same.

I was actually getting paranoid, thinking that a competitor or enemy was having friends order things, and would then later have them dispute charges. When I recovered from my paranoia, I realized that every order checked out.

Does this sort of thing happen to you?

[sun818]

> Does this sort of thing happen to you?

Yes, sometimes. Do you have access to your web logs? The access_log and referer_log will tell you where the traffic is coming from. I love it when a respected member of a forum plugs our web store! There's nothing like a recommendation from a respect individual.

[pbradish]

If you run analytics you should be able to tell where the orders are coming from pretty easily. If you don't currently, I'd suggest picking up a free software like Google Analytics. It only takes a couple of minutes to install, and tracks more data than most people can ever sift through.

[dpd1]

Typically what will usually do that is a direct unsolicited recommendation with link... Somebody on a popular forum somewhere says... "Hey I got this thingy from these guys (link). And there you go. Unsolicited plugs are probably the most powerful sale maker there is.

[dickbaker]

dpd1, I usually try to ask customers how they found my site, and many of them say that someone on a forum or a friend mentioned it. I think my level of customer service is as good as the best sites out there, so I hope the word of mouth advertising continues.

pbradish, I use Google Analytics, but I've found it difficult to track the routes users take to get to my checkout page. Maybe I'm missing something, but the Goals don't give me accurate mapping of the paths.

[dpd1]

<< dpd1, I usually try to ask customers how they found my site, and many of them say that someone on a forum or a friend mentioned it. I think my level of customer service is as good as the best sites out there, so I hope the word of mouth advertising continues.>>

In my experience, you simply can't buy advertising as good as unsolicited plugs from people on forums. There's been times when I sold more of an item in one day than I did for the last 4 months, all because one person posted that they liked something. I actually wish you *could* buy advertising that works that well, but you can't. And once you start getting known for having a personal touch with people, they will actually go out of their way to plug your stuff for you. It takes a lot of hard work, but it pays off. Good service is almost dead and gone, but some people still appreciate it.

[Old_School]

Good service is almost dead and gone, but some people still appreciate it.

No truer words were ever spoken!

I'm not in the same league with you big guys but as a little mom and pop widget maker only selling our custom widgets over the internet, I've spent maybe $4 or $500 in the last 8 years on advertising... my web site isn't optomized or really very effcieent, kind of clunky really, slow... probably everything you can do wrong with a web site, I have it happening on mine.

we get about 4% of our traffic from search enginess... the rest are direct access.

now we make pretty nice widgets and that goes a long way but i have to think our customers overall experience has more to do with our success than my lack of web making skills.

We make one widget that we get would have never in a million years have thought would have so much of an audience for and be so popular so surely the seeds of that were planted by a "happy" customer.

but to the original point...

Same thing happens to us...

[donnie98125]

My first reply was "Nice problem to have!"
But, I, too have had a good week myself at my webstore. My theory is that folks are returning from vacations... settling back to web surfing/buying. Sometimes, to soothe oneself back to real life after vacation, buying a new thing makes the pain go away!