Sudden drop in sales - Where to go from here?

[mdowling]

November's sales have dropped to about 25% of a normal month's. I am using Swift 2 and v18.2 and nothing has greatly changed for some months. I'm not sure if it's a blip and just an unusually low total for this month or it is something else that I need to remedy.

All of my sales are web searches or returning customers so it is possible that my listings in Google have changed for the worse or something else is amiss with the site

What should I be looking for and how do you suggest that I go from here?

This is the site : https://www.spectrumwellbeing.co.uk/acatalog/index.html

[John Ennals]

Hi,

Is the number of site visitors lower than usual, or are you getting the usual number of visitors but they're buying less? If the former, I'd consider uploading a Google shopping feed if you're not already doing so. If the latter, there may be some scope for improving engagement with the website. After a very quick visit, I'd suggest:

• Make the company logo image more inviting. The triangle looks like a warning sign to the uninitiated (sorry!) and the company name and address are barely readable even on a large screen. Perhaps change the logo to a colour other than black, and have "Spectrum Wellbeing" in big letters, leaving the address for the footer?

• On the product page, "Availability:" is followed by a blank, which makes it look as though the item is out of stock.

• Also on the product page, putting some actual information on the Delivery and Returns tab might increase customer confidence.

I also have quite a lot of regular customers, and actually find they tend to buy less in November and December, probably because with Christmas coming they have less to spend on themselves!

[Buzby]

I think your pages would look better on mobile with two rows of sections, or 1 row with larger images.

Make your images consistent in size. Look at the size difference between the bottom one and the rest. Try and use square images all the same size. Look at you spoon image which is long and thin, this would be better as a square with the spoon going corner to corner.

[mdowling]

Thank you John and Buzby for taking the time to have a look and comment. It is very helpful to have others looking at the site with fresh eyes.

Looking at Google analytics, the visitor numbers are a bit down, but not by a huge amount. Some of the site contains information that people seek, so a lot of visits don't lead directly to sales. Looking at the orders I have had, there are fewer from previous customers than normal, so maybe it is the pre-Christmas effect that John mentioned.

Regarding the Availability issue, am I right in thinking that I need to change settings in Business Settings | Options and Settings | Site Options | Stock ? I just want to show In Stock rather than the actual number in stock. What should these settings be? I've played around a bit, but can't make it work.

Thanks again for your help!

[John Ennals]

If I remember correctly, the "In Stock" message should appear if you select "Enable Online Stock Control" in Business Settings | Options | Stock Control / Monitoring. It probably won't appear if you select "Enable Stock Monitoring" instead. I think the "In Stock" message will appear irrespective of whether the checkbox "Stock Control / Monitoring" in Product Details is checked or not - but try it and see!

[mdowling]

Thanks John - I've got that sorted I think. On to the other things now!

[Mike Hughes]

It's also worth looking at your Google search console and exploring all the info there on Core Web vitals, pages indexed, etc. It can be very helpful to identify any problem areas with your site. Some of your product pages look quite thin on content so it's worth checking that google is still indexing all your product pages.