Forum Moderators: buckworks
A lot of people in other forums I frequented have complained of suddenly having poor sales online and offline. Although I no longer run an e-commerce shop, I am sure that my advertising revenue had been affected.
I wonder how is everybody else doing? Is this just a 911 moment when people are too glued to the news to buy anything?
I don't know the other side of the equation though, since we don't sell the major products ourselves. It may be due to other factors specific to us.
We're UK based, but I imagine that reaction to the last few weeks would be similar here and in the US.
We sell products that are traditionally fairly recession resistant. I just hope they're Depression resistant! Could be that some shoppers are moving to the web for lower prices and to save gas costs.
I'm watching orders from hardest-hit states like Nevada, Florida and California. They seem to be off more than the rest.
The slowdown for us started Oct-2007 and the pattern that we have noticed is that there is no pattern. It used to be that we could pretty much define when sales were going to come in and now there is no rhyme or reason for our customers behavior.
I spent about a year preparing some high-priced items for sale in this month, but when they started talking about a bailout, I thought maybe I better hold off. I talked to a customer the other day who called me twice about these items, wanting to buy two of them. So I decided that I would put half of them up for sale and see what happened.
For example, more people may know about your store now then 2 years ago. Does this mean sales are the same, or does it mean they are lower then what they should be given the age of your business? Not to mention whether you have changed any keywords, advertising budgets, or if your seach listings have fluctuated.
I remember that in the week following 911, sales were grossly affected for a week or two before returning to normal. Also when Bush, Bernake and Paulson warns that the economy is in grave danger, potential shoppers may start reining in. Here where I am in Hong Hong, there is definitely a palpable atmosphere of fear, with the high-end restaurants most affected. Bearing in mind that the local population here was the most confident about their economy in the world at the beginning of the year.
We weren't sure if this was purely due to the hurricane or possibly the economy as well. I have a feeling that it was due to both factors and other variables beyond our control.
Yesterday and today have both been very good days however and amazing for morale. If the economy is starting to become a factor we'll just have to make the best of it and keep being creative from a marketing perspective and continue to grow via excellent customer service / repeat customers, SEM, and SEO.
American's are gradually being forced to be more frugal but otherwise I've seen little indication we are changing our habits due to all the financial news. The election debates may have been a bigger distraction recently.
I was wondering why no one was talking about it on Ecommerce, since there always seems to be a thread about "my sales are dead this week!" regardless of how the economy is doing or what is going on in reality. I figured maybe it was bad enough that no one wanted to talk about it.
When they keep yelling that the sky is falling, you can't help but start to believe it and hunker down, and I think I am seeing that in my business. I myself am spending little right now, so I can't blame my customers if they aren't spending either. Yet I have also talked to customers in the past two weeks who are buying high ticket items from me and from other merchants. They expressed worry that maybe they shouldn't be spending this money now, but they bought anyway. This gave me the idea last night of not only rolling out some of the high-ticket items I've been preparing for a year, as I mentioned, but also of starting some even more expensive ones, in the $300-500 range. What the hey, if these folks have money and are willing to spend, they might as well give it to me, especially when I am not getting many of those $35 sales.
We have been down about 20% 2008 vs 2007 sales figures...until last month. We had the best Sept. ever this year, and one of our best months ever. Before any major conjecture starts: We have been optimizing AdWords a bit more; cut the advertising budget in half this Sept. vs last Sept. but kept roughly the same levels in traffic (up about 3%).
What the hey, if these folks have money and are willing to spend, they might as well give it to me, especially when I am not getting many of those $35 sales.
Wealth is recession and depression proof. The top 10% remain in the top 10% of income/wealth even when times are bad...and they tend not to alter their spending habits greatly. It's truly odd. Things like high priced art and 2, 3, 4 million dollar homes sell even when unemployment soars and inflation goes through the roof. Mega yacht sales are up this year, too...go figure. While its counterintuitive, your $500 items might have more buyers than your $35 during a downturn, short-run (or long-run, depending on your time frame).
I'm having April numbers in September/October. Hello recession...
We sell products that are traditionally fairly recession resistant. I just hope they're Depression resistant! Could be that some shoppers are moving to the web for lower prices and to save gas costs.
We're in the same boat with traditionally recession-resistant products. And although we have seen some lower sales overall, the last three months have been better than the first six months of this year.
Earlier this year we did, however, lower shipping by five cents--that "perceived value" in $4.95 instead of $5.00. One thing for sure is a drop in overnight and 2-Day shipping.
One last thought about X factors in sales: we never stop with seeking (and sometimes getting) publicity. And while print media has taken a hit in our industry, TV and blogs march on. TV especially because they rerun shows. Thank heavens for HBO is all I gotta say, because when we least expect it, they'll rerun shows we've been featured on.
So all that is to say that despite the downed economy, those seeming intangibles can work in one's favor.
