Anyone noticed a slump in sales?

[adotsri]

So not last week, but the week before (Week commencing November 6th) I have my best ever week in sales since I launched. Last week was absolutely abysmal and same for this week too. Could this be because everyone is waiting for black Friday?

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[FutureM]

I do have a slight decrease in sales, maybe black friday does have something to do with it, although i don't think people shopping for the products we sell would find many black friday deals. The funny thing is in the last few weeks our organic listings/traffic seems to have improved but doesn't appear to have affected sales

 

[RedundancyClaim]

Google ran an update in late September (Penguin 4.0), does this coincide with what you are seeing?

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Sales have been slow lately for one or two of my clients in the retail industry, but others have been breaking sales records over the past week.

Black Friday may be one cause, but it really depends on what you sell - especially close to the Christmas period.

I often find that certain product types can be pushed to the front or the back of the Christmas shopping list based on price, convenience and delivery times.

For example, more expensive products are usually purchased earlier on to get them out of the way first and to ensure they are delivered without any problems, so many retailers selling high value items can see their revenue peak around mid-late November.

However, this can result in attention being diverted to these expensive products and away from smaller value items, so some retailers of lower value products can see a slump during late November and then see their sales spike closer to Christmas.

Availability is another factor. If a retailer sells a unique product which is difficult to get elsewhere, more people will buy it early on to avoid the risk of stock becoming unavailable. However, if it's a more general product which is widespread, the purchase of it will usually be left until later as there are a lot more backup options available (such as going to a shopping centre).

Other than shopping habits, I would advise looking into your traffic and other site metrics as mentioned above.

Oh, and another good way to figure it out is to compare sales from last year. If you notice a year-after-year pattern around this time, then it's down to buying habits. However, if this is new, then it may be down to a specific problem you're facing this time.

 

[deniser]

Amazon are already running their Black Friday sales amidst a fanfare of publicity so if the item can be bought from Amazon, that's probably where people are heading this week.

We have also been unusually quiet yesterday and today but I am not doing any Black Friday sales. I have held off increasing my prices by 20% that currency fluctuations require so am certainly not offering any discount.

 

[19ninety]

I'd say it's likely seasonal and also depends on your market. For me my target market is recreational sports, and so sales are down a bit for me this last couple of weeks as folks are (I assume) saving for the coming sales and putting their disposable income towards Christmas spending, or spending with my bigger competiors who are able to do hard seasonal sales marketing.
Margins are pretty tight but I have done a couple of flash sales on high margin products to try and get a few bites but nothing has come of those, a bit of extra traffic, a few extra views and watchers on fleabay, otherwise some of my more seasonal and gifty products have been doing a bit better than normal (online market place keywords ).
I expect payday will see a flurry of pre-crimbo sales followed by a quiet spell till just after Christmas.

 

[FutureM]

ill be interested to see how we do in the first 3 weeks of December. Last two years those 3 weeks were the busiest of the year.

 

[Jax First Aid Supplies]

I sure have! Winter break kicks in late November and doesn't restart until ~2nd week in Jan. Such is life, though it gives us some time to recharge the batteries and begin 2017 fully prepared.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Strangely, when it comes to marketing and copywriting work, I tend to get some fairly large projects close to Christmas which usually have to be continued afterwards.

I take maybe 4 days off at the most though over Christmas and New Year, so it suits me.

 

[19ninety]

Just to follow up on this thread, as it's my first xmas trading. After a lull in sales around the Black Friday/Cyber Monday farce, things really picked up in December - record month! Yesterday and today things have really dropped off now the 'delivery in time for xmas' window has passed. So I wonder how long it will be until sales pick up again