Forum Moderators: phranque
UK traffic went down though during Wimbledon.
Just curious, anyone have any stats for how much the viewership of a college-student-targeted site goes down in the summertime? :)
Never thought I would ever say that :)
traffic has increased by 55% each year since 1999. but as of june, it looks now to be stagnating - either everyone who is interested in our area is online, or we too are feeling the downturn in the travel economy.
zeus
Real Estate -15%
Travel +20%
Financial -30%
Software -10%
New Cars -10%
B2B seems to get whacked even more then shopping/consumer for us in the summer.
B2B seems to get whacked even more then shopping/consumer for us in the summer
In the industry I'm working in (B2B network hardware and services) its accepted that the summer months are always slow. Our services director puts it down to three things:
1. (industry specific) For some reason ISP's tend not to buy in July/August.
2. Holiday season. Buyers are reluctant to start big projects when they're about to go on holiday. Quite often a deal will require contact with several members of a company. The chances of having to wait for one of them to come back from holiday are pretty high. More sales people will be off on holiday.
3. Its hot. The sales people like to spend as much time down the pub at lunchtime as they possibly can. Whilst there they will tend to consume more lager than usual. Then they fall asleep in the afternoon :-)
KartOO4U
If you are a Summer related sales site, have you missed the boat now because people buy in spring?
When the weather is good are people more likely to mooch around the shops rather but online?
Are you now reaping the rewards of spring marketeing ....and finally, when do you begin your Christmas promotion ... believe it or not I'm working on one now:)
This year is no different. My traffic this week is down 25-30% from May, owing a lot IMO to vacationers who don't surf the web and vacation-returnees who maxed out their credit cards.
Expect the slide to continue into early September when back-to-school sales pick up, early holiday season shoppers start hitting the web, new car sales kick in and vacations are over.
I maintain my email comms and do as much work whilst I can in the states. I often get bonus deals which pay for my summer jolly!
yeah I always assumed summer would be the worst time for travel websites, with most people being on holiday or having already booked their holidays.
A lot of the travel stuff on the web is last minute stuff, so summer is the best time.
In the 7-1/2 years that I've run editorial sites about European travel, I've noticed that traffic has usually (but not always) peaked in late May or early June. The same thing happened this year, with traffic dropping off a bit in mid-June. Some of my affiliate programs' bookings have also slowed down a little, although hotels have remained strong.
I ascribe the traffic drop to: (1) College and univirsity students going home (and, in some cases, heading for European vacation); (2) A decline in visits by armchair travelers, schoolchildren, and other casual visitors.
As for bookings, I think there may be two peak times: right before summer begins, and again before the busy vacation month of August.
Now that August is approaching, I'm seeing a new surge in both traffic and affiliate bookings.
BTW, my slowest time of year is usually late November and early December, with both traffic and bookings picking up sharply after New Year's.
Side note: I keep an eye on my Alexa traffic rankings and those of other editorial travel sites, and I've been edging up a bit in comparison with sites like Travel and Leisure. That would tend to support my belief that, for editorial travel sites in general, the peak period is immediately before--not during--the summer vacation season.
Same product .... different packaging!
June was the first month that I didn't do more sales than the month before (barely). It looks like this month is off to a great start. From what my suppliers say the industry is very slow right now and they don't expect it to pick back up until September.
