How bad are your sales?

[mdean]

My site is doing so poorly, I had to put a test order through to see if something was broke. 700 uniques today and not a single sale. Pretty much have had 500 per day and only about 1 sale every other day.

This is nuts!

Anybody else experiencing the same?

[ecommerceprofit]

Keep checking your code, shopping cart, web site speed - anything you can think of. If your sales have dropped 90% there must be something wrong technically. I know how you feel...some days I just don't understand why sales slow down - usually after much investigation it is techical in my case.

[Morgenhund]

May be a matter of lacking credibility?

- too bad site design (free web graphics used, rich-colored backgrounds)
- too god site design (too much design and/or flash, too little usability)
- not shown there is real person or company behind the site
- payment methods not targeted your auditory

[andy_boyd]

Experiencing very slow sales here on a site with 600 -> 800 uniques per day. Usually we would be in the middle of Christmas orders by now, this we have nothing.

But we have a major update coming online in the next few days, it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

[Rubylily]

My sales are absolutely dreadful this month, I suspect it may be the interest rate rises in the UK recently hitting people's spending power. Traffic is up, but people seem to be browsing, getting ideas for Christmas. Most of the High St stores seem to have been on perpetual 'sale' for months now, always a sign that spending has slowed right down generally, although I guess it's going to depend on your sector.

[lloyd]

It looks like it is follow the same pattern as last year and it is going to be a mad sprint from the mid to end of November.

People will be leaving things later and later, as each year goes by, people just get more comfortable with order online.

[uksports]

What is encouraging for us at least is the number of people adding the site to their favourites list which has gone up big time since our new site launch two weeks ago - sales during the last two weeks and the week to come are low every year, but then the Xmas spending starts in the last week of October for us - hopefully, all those people who have added us to favourites will be back!

[Essex_boy]

Signs of an econiomic downturn? This has been talked about quite a bit in the UK.

[mdean]

I don't think it's the site design since we did 20k in sales every month this summer. Our site is fairly seasonal, but there is a good portion of the country that is still experiencing warm weather. Wondering if the hurricanes have played that much of an impact on sales...we do get a lot of sales from the south. It's scary to think how quickly you can go under, especially when you're fairly new and not incredibily established financially.

[flobaby]

Lousy October sales here too after a great August and September. I just sent a week-long 10% off sale to my list which is helping, but if it wasn't for that...

Can't wait for that Christmas rush to kick in.

[RedWolf]

October started out great for me, but the last week has been the pits. I think I got two orders online. Luckily I have a repeat customer that wants three new pieces made, so I have some time to do them, but it would still be good to sell my in stock work. Another thing I am noticing is that average sale prices are way down this year. Mostly $20 to $50 items but more of them. I have sold very few of my $100 to $500 plus items lately which is a differnce from the last few years.

I think a lot of it is people in the US are nervous coming up on the elections and are holding off on larger purchases. Offline sales are also down from last year for me and other similar businesses in my market. Despite all the media reports that the economy is booming, I still hear about more of my friends and aquaintances in my target market getting laid off than finding new jobs.

[Raymond]

I had a very bad August and September. October was good though, we had more sales from 1st of Oct to 15th, than the whole September combined.

It seems like sales is slowing down a little bit these couple days. I am guessing election should have something to do with it.

[webdude]

I noticed a slump in July and August, but things picked up again until this past week where, for some reason, sales dropped off again.

[FrankWeb]

Dear All,

I have a similar problem, only for a longer time frame.

The site I am managing, has a coversion percentage of about 0.1%. I have tried to increase this by making sure the pages are not too slow, look professional (best as possible), and present our liable business objectives.

Can somebody have a look at the site (see profile) and just let me know what they think it is that people is giving a bad vipe, or chills that would make a customer click away.

btw, All traffic is quality, and from the geo locations we aim at (US and Europe}.

I really appreciate any suggestions and input, sticky me for details.

Thanks already.

[Essex_boy]

Frank: I guess love dont live here any more....

[grandpa]

Signs of an econiomic downturn?

This may well be the reason. We attend "outside" events in this region, and this past weekend was the biggest (and final) of those events. My core widgets sold well, but the accessories sat all weekend collecting dust. There was a definite lack of twenties changing hands. The turnout was a bit low too, but not bad.

People seem to be hanging on to what little cash they have, possibly due to current local/world events.

On a positive note, web site sales have been strong for every month this year. Much of that is due to repeat sales.

[mdean]

I can tell you after talking to a customer from the south, that the hurricanes probably affect us all a little. I talked to a customer who sells pecan shellers to pecan farmers in the south. In some areas up to half of the pecan trees are gone. So now the farmers don't have money to buy equipment...the equipment salesmen expect at least a couple of years to recover THEIR loss of sales...now they can't afford to buy FROM ME...it just keeps trickling down. He told me of a deep sense of depression in the surrounding areas and of how long it will take many to recover...not just their homes....but businesses and business activity.

[FrankWeb]

I hope your not right Essex_boy ;)

Anybody some tips for me? Look forward hearing from you.

[sabai]

Poor month this month. August was great, september was not so great, but this month as been quite poor so far. I'm seeing what looks like more abandoned carts - but I think it might be something with our payment processor (2checkout.com) and I'm thinking about switching. Did a test order last night which failed. Is anybody else using 2co.com?

Economic downturn - I hope not. I'm hoping for a merry christmas :-)

[tomld2]

I don't buy into economic factors dictating your sales success month to month. Fact is who have to be proactive no matter what. The web is full of trends and you must be innovative in driving new traffic. Frankly, it is my opinion any month could be yours or my best month ever if the effort is constantly put forth. Each month should build upon the last. This applies especially to your conversion rates. You should constantly improve your rates on a weekly basis. For example, we just released themed landing pages for our PPC ads and tripled our conversion rates across a large sector of keywords.

My advice is to never rest on your current advertising efforts. Stay effort, seek out new avenues and never settle on your current figures.

If you want, you can sticky me your URL and I'll take time to send you a list of areas I think would increase your sales rates. I imagine your site, including mine and 99.999% of others could use a lot of conversion improvements. Sticky me your site and I'll send you a list.

Tom

[sabai]

I don't buy into economic factors dictating your sales success month to month.

Depends what you sell - krugerrands, for example depend very much on geopolitical factors wheras bread is a safe bet at any time. Sure, you can always do more to improve conversion, but if consumer spending slows down then there's no question that you're going to sell less than you would have otherwise.

[tomld2]

I disagree. People have told me the dot com industry crashed. I hear it all the time, but I guess I decide to ignore it and continue to flourish. My point is, economic downturns are more hype than substance. But if it is your opinion, your sales are hurting, it's up to you to make up the difference. That's either increasing the conversions of the traffic you have, or increasing your traffic.

[mdean]

Posted a sticky Tom.

[tomld2]

mdean, I never received your sticky, unless you sent it under a different name?

[mdean]

tom,

Sent another. If you don't get it this time, maybe you could sticky me:)

[SkyDog]

The slump is either unique to your niche or is the result of something being wrong with our business or website. In general ecommerce sales are steadily increasing.

[Raymond]

I agree with SkyDog. My August and September sales were very bad and I see people claiming for their best month they ever had here. Every industry has their own ups and downs, can't generalize total sales as a whole.

Though, I was worried as hell during September because I expected an increase in sales after the Olympics. Right now I just hope the profit from the Christmas season will last through January and February.

[tomld2]

You shouldn't hope for increase after the olympics, you should have profited from them. I put an olympic spin on my product and you wouldn't believe the amount of low cost PPC olympic traffic that was available. It's a good idea to play off of events.

[pdivi]

On the subject of whether or not sales between different merchants are correlated or completely unrelated...

I, for one, am completely convinced that my sales are somewhat correlated with those of other merchants, both within my industry and across different industries....at least when looking at consumer sales in a given country. There are definitely months where there's a "collective malaise" where people hold off on purchases due to uncertainty, tragedy, changes in finance, etc. In checking these boards, talking to other merchants, and reading the results reported by publicly-traded retailers, Aug./Sept. of this year seemed to be one such slump. I'm not sure why -- Olympics, hurricanes, election pessimism, bad news in Iraq, oil prices reducing discretionary income, ... But I think the effect was widespread and if you were not affected by it, you were an exception.

[mdean]

I agree pdivi.