Sales Dropped Off Massively

[FutureM]

Hello,

So last month was a weird one, am i missing something blindingly obvious here.

Our sales have slowed down over the last couple of months and i can't figure out why.

I get "everyone" is on holiday but the number of visits to our website has remained pretty much the same.

If i compare last month to the same month last year (when the website was just 3 Months old) our sales have dropped 50%! In comparison everything else has changed for the positive... We have more reviews (Albeit still terribly low), changed a number of big flaws with the website and our rankings have improved fantastically.

If anyone has any ideas of what i should be looking in to or any advise please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[makeusvisible]

Google Analytics is going to be the key to this.

Has the bounce rate gone up....if so where?

Have you checked the main exist pages in Analytics.... that might point too an issue (if there is one), for example on your checkout.

Is there any major change in where the traffic coming from?

Can you give me an idea of the number of unique sales you had when things were going well, to the number you have had in the past month? Not the monetary value, just the number of sales.

 

[fallschirmjaeger]

I guess people will say look at your analytics to see what's going on from your sources previously and now. There could be sources that have dropped off or removed.

Whats your social media like - do you keep it engaging and fresh as your blog page has not been updated since 2014 - that tells me you have nothing interesting to say about your products!? What about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc - working well?

You are not one page one or two of google for the term 'football goalposts' - thats a big area to address I guess! You are on middle of page two for term 'football goals' - not good enough.

You have big competition - Argos and Tesco and several paid adverts. You need to make yours more exclusive in some way so they are unique or better and address the SEO issues above.

Hope some of this helps.

Mike

 

[Nochexman]

Our sales have slowed down over the last couple of months and i can't figure out why.

Might this slowing down have coincided with the end of the foopball season; in which case you might reasonably expect a speeding up from now on?

 

[FutureM]

all good suggestions to look at, thanks.

In terms of the ranking of football goals etc. its still work in progress, as you can imagine they are competitive and against some big players so page 2 is actually quite good considering the work we still need to put in.

In terms of social and the blog, yes I am bad at those and i know i need to work on them. these are things i need to do if i ever hope to grow. At the moment Im trying to figure out the sudden loss of sales.

 

[makeusvisible]

Good luck with it.... your absolutely spot on to get your site working and converting before you worry too much about driving traffic.

 

[HazelC]

all good suggestions to look at, thanks.

In terms of the ranking of football goals etc. its still work in progress, as you can imagine they are competitive and against some big players so page 2 is actually quite good considering the work we still need to put in.

In terms of social and the blog, yes I am bad at those and i know i need to work on them. these are things i need to do if i ever hope to grow. At the moment Im trying to figure out the sudden loss of sales.

Just food for thought... It was the 27th of the month and I was looking at my months sales, I was talking to my mentor and saying I was worried this would be my worst months sales... he replied "What can you do about that now"

Focusing on why sales were down last month instead of updating social media and blogging and your business will just result in another month of bad sales?

Of course review where you are at but figuring out why there has been a loss in sales, while letting other things slide and not focusing on improving future sales won't help at all...

(Sorry to be harsh, but I hope you feel I am being fair)

 

[makeusvisible]

Hazel from what the poster has said about his traffic, and dip in sales it does more suggest that there may be an issue with this site that has resulted in the existing traffic converting less well into sales.

If his conversion rate for example has called from 2% to 1%, he is much better off focusing his time initially on finding out why the conversion rate has dropped....because it is potentially an easy/quick result.

 

[e-vulture]

Could it just be people are comparing prices on your site ? I know I'll often have many tabs open with different stores comparing the prices to find the cheapest. I had a look at a random selection of your items and they were all available cheaper elsewhere with lower or free shipping. Have your competitors lowered prices lately ?

Your shipping charges seem quite steep at £6.50 regardless of size. Possibly OK for the bigger items, but too high for many of the smaller items.

 

[Funding for Communities]

Could it simply be the bad weather we have had this last month? you are selling an outdoor piece of equipment.

Mike

 

[Martin Gallagher]

How old's the business? Can you check the data against last year's sales for this period? The football season is starting, sure, but that means arses on seats - the weather's changing and kids are back at school too.

Who's your normal target audience? Businesses? Families?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

As stated, the answer is in the analytics. You are comparing this years sales to last years, you also state you made some change to the website that helped rankings. could that have harmed conversions?

Without seeing the data and site it is impossible to give a reliable answer sadly

 

[Connexions]

If your website takes payments, I would also look there. Do some payment (all types) testing.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Few thoughts:

1). Trace your steps. Did you make any changes to the site which coincided with a drop in sales? Think back to every change you've made.

2). Traffic quality. Have you checked in Analytics to see where the visitors are coming from? UK visitors could have dropped whilst overseas visitors increased. A lot of "spammy" traffic from abroad can skew data like this.

3). Conversion rate. Are you tracking the e-commerce conversion rate? The numbers might seem small but they can cause significant differences in sales. As makeusawebsite alluded to above, a conversion rate drop from 2% to 1% would instantly half your sales. If you've fully integrated Analytics into the website, then check all of the sales funnels and use the date comparison tool to check which pages the visitors are exiting from.

4). Competition. Have your competitors reduced their prices or changed some other aspect of their products or website? It isn't always just price alone. You're competing on all fronts, which includes user experience. If you and a competitor have similar prices, but your competitor's site is easier to use and gets them through the funnel faster, they will win a lot of sales over you.

5). Errors. Do a full audit of your checkout and payment processes. Try every payment option on different devices and use multiple cards to check that everything is working perfectly.

 

[Parcelhub]

Could just be cyclical. How long have you been trading for?

 

[japancool]

We have had a similar problem. Sales have fallen about 12-20% from peak over the last three months or so. I don't have sensible figures from last year to compare to.

While our rankings and clickthrough rates on the most common keywords have not fallen, the number of impressions for them has. The number of impressions for our Google Ad which targets people searching for our competitors has also dropped, and I cannot find any other new competitors. This leads me to conclude that summer, along with the end of a certain TV series, has meant fewer people searching for and buying our main product lines.

So earlier this month, I started a marketing campaign on social media, in print and on appropriate forums emphasising a different product line, related to a certain upcoming movie. That's taken some time to get going, but it's now starting to bear fruit. That, plus an upcoming new TV series and Christmas will, I hope, give us a major boost and return us to growth.