Business Picking Up but Not Flying
Things are picking up as they should be.....But, the orders are not ripping in as yet. Today we have taken about as much in value as this Sunday of last year. A little dissapointing.
A couple of thoughts/obervations though. The amount of traffic we are recieving is well up - featuring a lot better in the search engines this year. The number of orders is up, but the value of each order is down at present. The variety of orders is a lot more. Last year we had one runaway supplier that, as yet is still just ticking over - hopefully it will start to run away again soon :)
I guess, it is probably safer to have a wider selection of items ordered and having more traffic is obviously good news. The reasons I believe business is not a whole load better than last year? Well, I am guessing its a two fold problem, firstly, business in general is poor at present. There is no getting away from it. All the suppliers/reps are moaning, any goods we order are coming through within a couple of days as opposed to weeks (more normal for most of our suppliers). Even most of the nationals are complaining and that is after having slashed all their prices!!
The other factor I am guessing is the number of extra internet dealers. I have no idea what the figures are but I am sure there must be more and more retailers setting up online and that must mean the orders have to be shared. We obviously took a fair bit of business from someone in the last 18 months and I am sure there will be more wanting a slice of the pie in the future.
Do the above factors worry me. Well, the slump in business is more worrying from the shops point of view. At least we are up this year on internet sales, the shop is currently well down on last year. The shop is very well established and hence, a pretty good yard stick. The fact it is well down, along with most of the other businesses in the town (by all accounts) is a sign that people just arent spending their money at present. As long as we can get throught this bad patch and (with the help of the internet) hold our own, things should eventually pick up.
The extra competition on the inernet? Well, as I mention in a previous post, the site has taken a bit of a back seat compared with setting up the warehouse this year. Now thats in place and we have a couple of full time staff in, we should be able to really start to push the marketing/site improvements/stock range, etc. next year. I am not short of ideas and am looking forward to putting them in place after christmas.
One final thing I do want to try this year is the email newsletter. We have around 500 subscribers and as yet have not sent out a newsletter - I have been working on one this week (usually at around midnight!). Just about there now and I have pretty much decided on the service to use to send it. Will try to get it sent at the end of the week. I had kinda guessed that the weekend would be the most effective time and have also read confirmation of this so, probably next Friday evening should be the time to dispatch it. Will have to get the finishing touches carried out now!!
A couple of thoughts/obervations though. The amount of traffic we are recieving is well up - featuring a lot better in the search engines this year. The number of orders is up, but the value of each order is down at present. The variety of orders is a lot more. Last year we had one runaway supplier that, as yet is still just ticking over - hopefully it will start to run away again soon :)
I guess, it is probably safer to have a wider selection of items ordered and having more traffic is obviously good news. The reasons I believe business is not a whole load better than last year? Well, I am guessing its a two fold problem, firstly, business in general is poor at present. There is no getting away from it. All the suppliers/reps are moaning, any goods we order are coming through within a couple of days as opposed to weeks (more normal for most of our suppliers). Even most of the nationals are complaining and that is after having slashed all their prices!!
The other factor I am guessing is the number of extra internet dealers. I have no idea what the figures are but I am sure there must be more and more retailers setting up online and that must mean the orders have to be shared. We obviously took a fair bit of business from someone in the last 18 months and I am sure there will be more wanting a slice of the pie in the future.
Do the above factors worry me. Well, the slump in business is more worrying from the shops point of view. At least we are up this year on internet sales, the shop is currently well down on last year. The shop is very well established and hence, a pretty good yard stick. The fact it is well down, along with most of the other businesses in the town (by all accounts) is a sign that people just arent spending their money at present. As long as we can get throught this bad patch and (with the help of the internet) hold our own, things should eventually pick up.
The extra competition on the inernet? Well, as I mention in a previous post, the site has taken a bit of a back seat compared with setting up the warehouse this year. Now thats in place and we have a couple of full time staff in, we should be able to really start to push the marketing/site improvements/stock range, etc. next year. I am not short of ideas and am looking forward to putting them in place after christmas.
One final thing I do want to try this year is the email newsletter. We have around 500 subscribers and as yet have not sent out a newsletter - I have been working on one this week (usually at around midnight!). Just about there now and I have pretty much decided on the service to use to send it. Will try to get it sent at the end of the week. I had kinda guessed that the weekend would be the most effective time and have also read confirmation of this so, probably next Friday evening should be the time to dispatch it. Will have to get the finishing touches carried out now!!
posted by richandzhaoyan | 11:11 PM
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