How Are Your Ecommerce Sales Holding Up?

Let's take the patient's temperature

[wifi on the fly]

Anyone else seeing slow sales in ecommerce over the last week or so?

[brakkar]

I'm curious: what are your selling guys? Can I see your sites? (private message if you don't want to answer here).

Thanks

[Essex_boy]

traffic halved for me not good

[bekyed]

Same here essex boy.
The worst pre-xmas ever!

Bek.

[dbar]

I'm curious: what are your selling guys? Can I see your sites?

lol, yea come on tell all. Who's going first.

[SEOPTI]

Vegatarian cat food.

[sniffer]

still at 1%

[Steelbank]

We just saw a pick up in sales beginning yesterday. Dont forget that for brick and mortar stores its called 'Black Friday' for those of us in ecommerce its called 'Cyber Monday'. The monday after thanksgiving is when we will all see a major increase in sales.

Brace Yourself!

[jsinger]

Is there a one-one relationship between traffic and sales?

I'm guessing that people waste less time surfing nowadays. The novelty is wearing off. But they still go online to buy and save. Our traffic has slowed but the cash register is ringing nicely.

[icedout]

i read that article too, about the whole cybermonday thing, it seems to make sense, I guess we'll all report back on monday!

I'm doing skin care cosmetics.

[jsinger]

I don't think it makes sense.

Yeah a lot of OUR customers shop at work. We do a lot of B2B. But I'm not sure that's true in many fields. And how much shopping will be done the day after returning to work from a 4-day weekend? I actually work...then! LOL

Anyone have traffic/sales results at hand for last year at this time?

I've always seen that holidays kill online traffic/sales for several days before and AFTER any major holiday.

[Essex_boy]

Just read in the Telegraph on Saturday that onlines sales are booming.... Just where?

Kepping checking my rank to ensure ive not dropped and its still the same, I really dont know whats up.

Weird really, weird.

So far tonight Ive had 8 yes 8 page views! ROFL.

I had more than when I started the started the site.

[outland88]

I'll be slashing prices because of Jagger.

[Miop]

Picked up a bit today, but still low traffic and sales - few high value sales made up for it but all week it has been mostly repeat customers buying little things. Bless 'em.
For whoever it was who asked, I sell gold silver and body widgetery :)
I believed that it was because my site is not being found anymore since Jagger, but having read this thread, I've changed my mind.
Traffic *is* less than 50% of this time last year, still, but I don't now know if people simply aren't looking or because we are not being found.
Also getting some low cost sales (5-10 quid) rejected by customers bank and fraud-merchants out in force. Not good news.

[Miop]

< I'll be slashing prices because of Jagger.>

I hope it works for you - our prices are already low and we had to increase them slightly because we became liable for VAT a few months ago.

[LostOne]

"I'm curious: what are your selling guys?"

High dollar ticket items for the homeowner/home improvement. Sales about the same as last year. Traffic up considerably over same period last year. Slow period sets in around the second week December until second week of January.

[Miop]

<homeowner/home improvement.>

Interesting - my lad works for a certain very large Swedish furniture retailer and they are really really busy.
I wonder if people have decided to spend their hard-earned on the home instead of buying things for other people?
Maybe they are desperate to sell their houses and have watched too much house doctor!

[HRoth]

"Anyone have traffic/sales results at hand for last year at this time?"

I haven't got traffic results from last year (server wiped them out by accident), but I just compared this past week's sales to the same week last year, and this year was 7% more. So I guess I forgot how bad it was this time last year.:)

[minnapple]

Big spike Tuesday and Wednesday, dead Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I expect Sunday to be dead also.

Monday should pick up as it has the last 5 years that I have been keeping close records.

Hang on, and get ready to start processing orders.

[wifi on the fly]

Ok I will weigh back in on this. Since my original post we have seen a dramatic increase in sales. Mostly we are in the apparel industry. I have no idea what happened pre-jagger, but we did lose a huge amount of sales and a huge amount of traffic. We didn't really drop in rankings but for some reason we dropped in traffic. Very strange indeed and I thought we were done for. I did a pre comparision with last year at this time and we are right about where we were last year except this Thanksgiving day we had a lot more sales versus last Thanksgiving day. Friday (25th) the Saturday (26th) seem like things are back to normal. Knock on wood at least for our industry it appears we are out of the woods. Hopefully you guys see a bang buster holiday season.

[corbing]

It's interesting that while reading through this thread I seem to see a lot of UK stores doing less than normal.

I'm here in the US and we're doing amazing amounts of business right now (more than 200% increase over last year and last year was up 120% vs. previous). A few associates that I know that are also in the ecom biz in the US are also doing crazy business right now. This "black friday/cyber monday" weekend is going to be record setting and we've had to hire temps just to try to keep up next week.

I wonder if there is something going on in the UK economy and/or SE's that is causing a less than desirable result?

[wifi on the fly]

I was mentioning that exact thing to my wife tonight. Maybe the UK will kick start higher sales a little bit later? Let us know how it goes.

[Essex_boy]

Just spoken to several friends with consumer based firms all are saying its very quiet at the moment.

[GarryBoyd]

Saw this program on telly the other day about identity theft. Some big wig cop in cyber crime gave the following advice:

Dont put your credit card info into an online shop. Get the fax # and fax the info instead.

On avoiding keyloggers: Just go on the 'net and download a free firewall prog. There are lots to choose from.

Sheesh.

[videobeat]

I too experienced a soft October and November. I managed to pull October's numbers up to a bit above normal monthly volume by offering a Halloween sale advertised on my site and sent out to newsletter subscribers. Like clockwork (knock wood) I always have a 2-3 day spike after a newsletter blast.

November was shaping up to be soft but on Thanksgiving (11/24) I sent an email offering a one-day sale. Sales spiked for the one-day. Then I sent another email extending the sale through the weekend and as a result November numbers are now very respectable.

I definitely have to work it all a bit more than usual. The lesson I learned this year is that the double email over the Thanksgiving holiday = more sales and larger pre-order amounts.

Fingers crossed for December!

Good luck to all.

[minnapple]

Sales are really warming up here Sunday night.
About triple the volume of a normal day in a 4 hour period.
Welcome to the 2005 holiday shopping season!

[shri]

Minapple, Funny you should say that ... we're seeing "cyber monday" in effect here in my part of the world in Asia with the American expats. :)

[icedout]

yeah, heating up a bit here too...

[bekyed]

Glad to know the yanks are still doing well.
Here in the UK we are still experiencing terrible sales, rub our noses in it guys, that is what you are good at!

Bek.

[badass101]

I wondered if, for us UK'ers, it's to do with the mild weather (which has just recently turned)
It really doesn't feel like it's coming up to Christmas yet, where most houses usually have decorations up this time of year - around my way there are not as many as usual.

I reckon that when December 1st hits, it will all kick off as people realise they only have 25 days left!

[blueskym]

Glad the USA side of things holding up , i reckon and I have read too much negatives the second half of this year , that Uk ecommerce is hitting its first stumblings and first recessions although in the end I reckon our figures will still look respectable come dec 31st . i beleive consumers are just going about it deifferent this year . Also the media has spent most of the year warning about identity and ebay theft ..sheesh its all bad for out buisness confidence . 2004 in UK was all about how wonderful the net was and how much you could save using the net... this year its all been buyers beware in the media .
2006 .. batten down the hatches guys , cut those costs and keep stock lean ... we are about to hit recession on the online market ...

sorry folks the noveltys worn off

PEG