Struggling to make ends meet

[cliveant]

I am a start up business...started online in 2009. Its only a very small business but we were encouraged to have turnover in 2009 of £22K....2010 of £36K which then fell to £31K in 2011. This year though I am just sorting out our year end and turnover has taken a nose dive to £20K
I am so depressed about this. I have put hours into building things up...and have a storage room full of stock...all started off on a shoe string.
I don't know where things have gone wrong....in 2011 and 2012. I am selling exactly the same type of goods...just a little more choice. Not increased postage or prices. In fact part of my decrease in profit must be in not passing increased costs on
The fact is people just aren't buying like they did. I am sure its just the economy in general...especially when I look at all the big names which are closing down.
Shall I just keep plodding on and hope in a year or so things pick up. I am worried that perhaps it isn't the economy and that I am doing something wrong as I have very little experience.
I did try for a while to put some goods on ebay as well as my online shop. Other sellers were doing ok on ebay but I am struggling to get sales as I am charging the same but don't have the back up of feedback and trusted seller status etc.
Just wondering how other people are fairing. I am in the retail of mens clothing...mainly shirts. Would be interested to know how others in the clothing / retail sector have done over the past 4 yrs.

 

[Vision2]

i take it you've spent some time looking over the anlystic stats and your products are in google base?

checked the clicks / views on these products?

rechecked your prices to see if your competitive enough?

can be other things, times move on, traffic gone down? site looking like bad? 5 years ago merchants could get away with a lot more than what they can now. People are far more web savvy. Does your site look legit? function right? checkout process? payment methods? delivery putting people off? abandoning cart or not filling at all?

many many questions, but if i were you i'd take a step back and have a looksie at everything as a whole.

 

[Mister B]

I am selling exactly the same type of goods...

And there in lies part of your problem: If you were selling hot products a while ago you may have found that the market has moved on and you have failed to move with it. Hence the fall in sales.

I would be inclined to take a step back and go through all aspects of your business with a fine toothcomb. There is still money out there it just takes a little longer to find and more people are chasing it.

Don't use the economy as an excuse for failure or as a reason to give up. For sure things may be tougher but it's not neccessarily a reason to fail or give up.

Mister B

PS. FWIW, we too started in 2008 and after two years of strong, triple digit growth, growth fell back to around 10% a year. Not bad you may say but from a small base it's quite low. We evaluated our product offering and are now growing at around 60% a year. And that's on a substantial six figure turnover

 

[Digital Investments]

This is mean't as constructive feedback, not criticism:

You need to firm up and take a grip of your business; you only realised T/O was down when you done your year end? You should be on your figures like a rash.

Being depressed, plodding alond and 'hoping' is not going to get you anywhere.

I am worried that perhaps it isn't the economy and that I am doing something wrong as I have very little experience.

This situation is your experience! It's how you deal with it that makes you any good and successful.

Again this is not meant as criticism. Analyse the situation, try to attain a few key insights on why things are down and prepare a plan on the points that offer an opportunity for improvement. You should NOT be aiming to achieve your previous best T/O of £36k... you should aim for more based on what you think is realistic, which comes from the analysis of the situation. Mr B sounds like an ideal example on how you could shape your business up - you'd be wise to listen and act

Good luck

 

[raineshoe]

I'd also say if you haven't raised any prices in 3 years you are almost certainly going to be trading at a loss or near loss. Goods to buy in and postage will have risen in that time and will be costing a fortune if you are not covering the cost with your customers paying a proper postage rate and a proper rate for your goods.

We constantly review our prices and costs.

 

[webgeek]

Some possibilities:
1) Decreased demand due to market conditions - you've identified this rightly, it's prevalent
2) Decreased demand due to increased competition - people love to enter the market with a proven idea/product, so you may have more competition than you did before

If you know a product can sell on eBay/Amazon/Play or similar sites, but you don't have the feedback, then either:
1) Sell at a loss to build the feedback
2) Hire a powerseller to sell for you, giving them a split just for listing the ads, effectively becoming a dropshipper

 

[profscooter]

Similar situation here, things are very slow. Had to do a test purchase on my site last week to make sure it wasn't broken! Had lots of stock left over from end of 2011, did a bit of a clear out on EBay to help pay some bills, have expanded into a new area although this is slow to take off in current market conditions, other thing I did is cut back on some non-essential costs like paying for some annual software licence update renewals (I'll stick with an older version till things pick up). Also bit the bullet and closed my fixed BT phone line and replaced with a VOIP number saving about £400 a year, and cut back on packaging costs etc., every little helps.

Also I compared my site on semrush.com with some competitors in the same product field and most of them are getting plenty less traffic than I am, so try doing that and see how you stack up. Made me suspect it's more the economic situation than anything I'm doing wrong.