Anyone else have a recent slowdown in orders?

[dickbaker]

July and August are typically slow months for me. I was doing alright until two or three weeks ago. Sales have been slowing down to the point where I had no sales this weekend.

I'm thinking (and hoping) that the cause is the wrangling over the US debt limit, and that people are nervous. If that's not it, I don't have any other ideas.

Is anyone else unusually slow?

[WillG]

I think it all depends on what you are selling. My sales have been steady but I am in the Back To School niche kind of so that seems to be helping.

[HRoth]

I too have seen a decrease in the past 2 weeks. I saw a 10% decrease in sales over July last year. In contrast, June was 15% more than last year. I think people are scared, and that fear is being deliberately whipped up in them by our "leaders."

[golfdaze]

This past weekend our sales were extremely low for a weekend and I have noticed it trending that way for about the last 3 weekends. I was at a trade show this weekend as well and one of my suppliers indicated that he had had only 1 order in the last two weeks - very strange for him.
My take is that congress has managed to either scare or enrage most of the country and the uncertainty has made everyone pause for awhile.

[Planet13]

It's been slow for a while now...

but yeah, July was particularly tough.

I think the fact that gas prices are LOWER this year than last year at this time means that maybe more people are traveling this summer compared to last year?

Also, job growth has been pretty slow lately too, so aside from the debt ceiling showdown, and the Greece meltdown, there might be a few other reasons.

[mhansen]

We noticed a dip ourselves in actual "buyers"... our traffic levels are flat to up slightly however, so its not that we stopped getting referrals, we just stopped getting buyers... which can also be worded as visitors stopped buying.

We're in a market that should have thrived over the last 2-3 weeks with the high temps across the USA... but it seems that people are either sitting on their money, or local places has pushed us down a bit.

We're still seeing the 7-pack popping up for phrases it ever did before, so its hard to say for us yet.

MH

[Bewenched]

I think it's the US debt that has consumers sitting on their wallets.
Our traffic is up just slightly, but sales in particular this past weekend were dismal.

[dpd1]

Been slow, but usually is at some point around this time. I'm up overall this year. People always say it's how people feel, or the economy or whatever... But the only problem I have with that, is that the slow points usually seem to correspond with everything else being slow on the internet as well. Less email, less forum traffic, less everything... I just think there's lulls. People do other things. At this point, I can't believe anybody is sitting at home biting their nails about anything. If you haven't become desensitized by government stupidity by now, you never will be. I just don;t picture the average Joe being that analytical about it.

[dickbaker]

I just don;t picture the average Joe being that analytical about it.

Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but the deficit ceiling issue has been covered non-stop by the media. I would think it would make some people nervous.

[dpd1]

I'm sure it probably does. How many, I don't know. As I've said for years... If you watch the news every night, they'd have us all believe we may as well just go out into the garage and suck on our tailpipes, because there's no hope in anything.

[jecasc]

I have experienced this many times. Unusual slow days - to an extent where I checked my websites several times a day if it was still up and running. And then after a few days - back to normal. Today I KNOW that this are only statistical fluctuations - the same as unusual spikes of orders. But after ten years in the business it still creeps me out every time.