Forum Moderators: buckworks
Meanwhile, though, I've had four days with zero orders. There's been people going to checkout, but nobody has bought anything.
I've tested the checkout and it worked.
Is it possible for it to work for me but not others?
This should be the busy time of year for my site. Last month was pretty good.
I tested it from a remote server not connected in any way with my site and it worked.
Four days without a single order at this time of year is really, really unusual. I should be getting several a day. There's people going to the shopping cart, but for whatever reason they're not finishing.
We have about 1/2 our normal daily traffic these days and it was off another big chunk starting a few weeks ago. Just about the time I installed GA on all 300 or so web pages so
I removed the code a couple days ago,( superstitious ).
We seldom go a day without at least one sale over the last 12 years or so we have been online, that includes all the major holidays, BUT NOW in the last 6 months along with the lost traffic we have experienced many days without a sale,
IT IS SCARY, I do all the usual stuff, place an order myself, ask a friend to place and order, call my host and ask about the server. My wife and I only have this for income, neither of us can get a real job and more because of medical conditions. Last year I tried to get a job as a greeter, and was asked if I had any experience? YIKE!
Hope this recession ends for of us very soon, we are too young for SS, my wife applied for SS disability but it's going to take another year before she will know about that.
Maybe changing servers will do the trick for you.
500 code errors are not very good news unless it's just some bad code in htaccess or some where else, or the hard drive starting to go south.
One more bit and I'll shutup, as I said before, our sales are way down for this time of the year, usually starting in late September and for sure October sales trend up until January, and even then are fairly good for Valentines day in February, but this time it hasn't been there, I thought I would have read other posts about dismal sales but haven't seen any lately so I thought it was just us, the things we sell, our prices, shipping whatever, so while I'm not happy that you also have had some bad days at least I see we are not alone.
ALL THE BEST
Mike McKnight
This year both traffic and sales have been roughly 80% of what they were one year ago. The exception has been the last few days.
I've messed up a couple of times with the admin section of the shopping cart, but not for long.
If I can stay at 80% of last year, that will be fine. If it gets worse, it's not going to be fun.
Same thing happening here I have up to 3-4 order a day that have been abandoned.
I'm getting 12-15 people a day going to the shopping cart. I had one person today go all the way through. Everybody else bailed.
I'd love to have just 3-4 abandonments a month.
Everybody else bailed.
I don't advocate contacting abandoned carts as a general rule, but if you are truly this concerned, a little communication with the customer might help you improve and/or ease your mind.
I know that the economy is much worse than last year, but here's what I don't understand. In September I had the same number of sales as I did in September of last year. In October my sales were 89% of last October's sales. For the first 10 days of November my sales are one-third of what they were for the first ten days of November last year. It's as though the world changed on November 1st.
I know that there is at least one item I personally intend to buy, but am holding off until "black week".
If I remember correctly there were at least one or two
deaths and numerous injuries when the big retail stores open their doors on that particular Friday after Thanksgiving
last year, and for sure crazy/bad public behavior in previous years.
It now has the public fixation or urban myth / folklore to wait til black Friday and surely all the best deals will be offered by retailers. You can see every earlier and earlier the Christmas displays in stores like Walgreens. I swear that I saw Christmas stuff up way before Halloween this year.
Anyway, my cart seems similar to Dick's no email until they actually finish the payment process. So I'm wondering if there is some way to put a text or graphic message on the page where they simply put something in the cart asking them to make an email comment to you to the effect of if they aren't going to complete the sale, would they mind emailing you as to why not?
I'm sure that some folks just want to see the total including S&H , so they can compare it to another site or two.
What do you think?
Mike McKnight
make sure your toll free 800 number is in bold print what text saying "Feel Free to call toll free if you have any questions"
Might work once in a while?
Mike
Still, I get people who tell me they went to the cart to see how much shipping is.
On all of the product and shopping cart pages, I have the 800 number prominently displayed, and people do call. Often it's to find out how much shipping is. ;)
I know the economy is bad, but I don't understand why people didn't feel that way a week and a half ago.
Sales are at or near record highs for us, even as we have cut back inventory to reduce risk. Of course, I would rather be sold out than overstocked, even this early in the season.
Folks know there are no sales coming on our popular stuff. Supplier is working overtime (literally) to try to keep us stocked.
a week and a half ago unemployment was still under 10%
For a while now I've been working on creating income without selling tangible goods and also working out multiple income streams. This kind of experience, where sales just drop into a manhole, is incredibly stressful and ties my stomach in a knot just thinking about it, but it is good in that it motivates me to get out of ecommerce all the sooner. The unpredictability is one of the things about retail that I hate. That and printing labels.:)
The issue could be a rise in website latency and packet loss around the same time, making payment pages load much slower resulting in abandonment. According to the 30 day internet traffic report there was an increase in global packet loss around 29 Oct, with a dramatic spike on 11 November.
We could be wrong... Has anyone here thought about it from this angle and could share their thoughts?
I have seen many sites where the price is not revealed in advance but only in the cart. Many people go to the cart to see the price and then exit because they don't like the price (and/or shipping cost). However, if prices are clearly disclosed in advance the abandonment percentage would be much lower. This may not be the case with dickbaker
Last year my online sales benefitted from the election, and that continued for months after the election
Linking a lengthy sales increase to the (U.S.?) election is an odd conclusion unless you sell Obama apparel or the like.
You're talking about a long chunk of time in which many factors come into play, starting with the Christmas shopping season. I've never heard any retailer claim an election measurably affected revenue except perhaps for a lull on election day as people vote.
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So, dickbaker, has your abandonment returned to normal? We've all had periods where we wonder whether our cart is working, and can relate to your plight.
Linking a lengthy sales increase to the (U.S.?) election is an odd conclusion unless you sell Obama apparel or the like.
I really don't have much to add except that it must be very niche-dependent. My Oct/Nov sales are up 25% from last year. However, a big chunk of my customers are retired - their cashflow follows their investments and the stock market, not the job market. So it follows.
There was no place to hide and no apparent floor on the financial decline.
Now, with a soaring stock market and stabilized banking/insurance system, our sales are well up from October/November 2008. But autumn 2008 was one heck of a scary period. I look for easy year-to-year revenue gains thru spring.
As for the long term effects, we'll see...
Following the November 2008 election, sales of widgets nationwide were up 30-40% over the same period in 2007. The buying frenzy continued until about June. People who had never owned widgets before bought them because they were afraid of the bad economy, and afraid that the widgets would face further restrictions or even outright bans. Manufacturers couldn't produce enough product to meet demand; one major manufacturer had a three-month waiting list for their products. Many retailers went out of business because, while they had customers wanting to buy, they didn't have the product to sell.
My sales for 11/1 through today are half what they were for the first two weeks of November last year. The dropoff was really sharp on November 1st. Maybe it is just people hearing bad economic news and pulling in their spending.
