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ecrater long term traffic slide, getting ready to close up
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bakersbarrel



Posts: 5

PostPosted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:04 am    Post subject: ecrater long term traffic slide, getting ready to close up Reply with quote

so i've already closed one store.

based on sales and what data EC traffic data i can find i'm ready to close the other.

both stores used to make $500 per month, without paid promotion. but in sept 2017 they just dried up. both stores had dropped below $100 month and have never recovered. even with paid promotion. i see my stuff is on google shopping so that's functioning.

is amazon sucking up that much business or is EC dying a natural death?

hate to see see it go.

CS









https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ecrater.com
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slyravengear



Posts: 120

PostPosted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you tried pinterest? It does generate views and purchases.
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:01 pm    Post subject: Re: ecrater long term traffic slide, getting ready to close Reply with quote

bakersbarrel wrote:
is amazon sucking up that much business or is EC dying a natural death?


Go read my thread about 'the Amazon problem'. There may be a clue or two there. Amazon wants to be the one stop shop for all possible items, and (so it would appear) ignores all side considerations and shady sellers.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't see eCRATER drying up. I am still doing well. One thing that you might want to check into is the negative you got. Do you know that you can respond to them now? So that once you respond, refund or whatever you have to do, you can post as a response what you have done to clear up the problem.

Not sure why you are blaming this on Amazon. I was making sales here this past weekend while I went 4 days without any Amazon ones. Seeing that I could say that eCRATER is sucking up all the business and Amazon is dying. Lots of 3P sellers on the Amazon forum are doing lots of complaining of lack of sales, yet this month I'm doing pretty good. Beat three months of total sales already this month. On Amazon and even this forum, I get amused by all the things lack of sales are credited to. Take your pick: tax season - doing taxes, no refund, having to pay, using the refund for something else. The stock market is up or down, the economy is up or down, its raining or the sun is shining or it is snowing (hopefully no again until next November!!!), Whoever is the president, the recession, summer vacation, Christmas vacation, spring break, and on and on. Something will ALWAYS be happening. Tax season as much as some of us procrastinate is from Jan.1 to April 15 basically. You can't blame sales fluctuations for 3 1/2 months on taxes. You can always find an excuse for why your sales weren't the best this week or month.

Sometimes it is something simple. I forgot what you sold, so went to your store and was surprised that Baker's Barrel didn't seem to have anything to do with baking which was what I expected. What were you doing when you had the good sales that perhaps you aren't doing now? Of all the things that make it hard for online sellers these days and that is Google and the way they change their algorithms and they want money now to show you in shopping. Sales here last year, you could almost literally list and sit back and watch the money roll in. No longer. We have to keep Google happy and we don't always know how to do that. Selling online all over has gotten harder. Many, many more people are trying to sell online to make some 'easy money' or even hard money as they may have been laid off or whatever. We are facing so much more competition it isn't funny. When I started selling more on Amazon 7 years ago, yet again the sales flowed in as I rarely had competition. Now, today one of my listings, it has two whole pages of sellers, most practically giving their inventory away. I won't do that. Eventually, most of it sells, but I won't list things that don't even give me a candy bar in return.

I hope you can find a way to keep your store going, but no eCRATER is not dying as far as I can tell.
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lastade-designs
moderator


Posts: 2903

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 3:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don´t see Ecrater drying up either.

I look at the other stores in Ecrater quite often because I promote other stores on here for our Facebook page and find that most are doing quite well. These stores are doing something right.

I am looking for 2 or 3 things. One being the last time they updated their stores, what kind of feedback they have and if they have their store information on their homepage filled out.
I am always perplexed when a store has not updated anything since 2013 or has blanks on their about, FAQś and other store information. Stores with terrible feedback are responsible for people getting mad at Ecrater.

If a seller takes care of their store plus knows how to promote their store they will do well here. I don´t think it matters anymore what site you sell on. People are out there buying more than ever but you have to have them find your products. That is the trick of it all.
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@MoonwishesStore

I know you kept track of this at one point, but what's the daily run rate on eCRATER order numbers ?
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

cosmicray wrote:
@MoonwishesStore

I know you kept track of this at one point, but what's the daily run rate on eCRATER order numbers ?


I just ran a quick run of the numbers and for this month we are averaging 757 orders per day. Not like the 'big boys', But the number is going up! A few years ago It was holding steady at around 600 a day. Considering this is March with no big gift giving going on or anything like that, I look forward to seeing the numbers to continuing to go up.
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lastade-designs
moderator


Posts: 2903

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MoonwishesStore wrote:


I just ran a quick run of the numbers and for this month we are averaging 757 orders per day. Not like the 'big boys', But the number is going up! A few years ago It was holding steady at around 600 a day. Considering this is March with no big gift giving going on or anything like that, I look forward to seeing the numbers to continuing to go up.


That is pretty good!
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very Happy

The neat thing is we can say that we truly helped build this site! It feels good to be a founding Mother or Father! I suspect even though we may not articulate it, that is why there is a core bunch of us that will always be on eCRATER's side. This is our baby too!
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FoxAndFish



Posts: 1585

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 8:47 am    Post subject: Re: ecrater long term traffic slide, getting ready to close Reply with quote

bakersbarrel wrote:
based on sales and what data EC traffic data i can find i'm ready to close the other.

Certainly your choice, but what is the benefit of closing a store that can operate without cost to and with very little attention from the seller?

Sellers have been (rightfully) complaining about decline in traffic and sales since 2010. That was the year Google instituted changes to the search algorithm/index (MayDay and Caffeine) that hit some sellers particularly hard. Yes, Google is always changing its algorithm, but those particular changes caused huge disruption among online sellers everywhere. It was merely the beginning of changes Google would be continuously making to serve itself over its users, a practice that is ongoing.

By 2012 traffic on eCrater had dropped about 50%, from more than 1 million visitors per day to apx 600K/day. That was according to SiteAnalytics, which is no longer operating but which showed a steady decline. I watched that site for months trying to understand the decline, and it was so alarming, I posted about it here: https://community.ecrater.com/viewtopic.php?t=31741

Every time this subject comes up, there is pushback that there is no problem, b/c some sellers claim to be doing fine per their own standards. A seller who is not doing fine is typically blamed for not promoting enough, not offering enough products or the right category of product, not doing XYZ. But in many cases it is not (entirely) the seller's fault. Much depends on the product being sold, the competition for the product, and how that product can be searched and reflected in search results.

Here are some annual numbers. I'm using order numbers as sales, which is not 100% accurate but is close enough for gross comparison.

I started here in April 2009. At the time, there were apx 900-1000 sales/day sitewide.
Dec 2009: apx 2400 sales/day
April 2010: apx 1700-1800 sales/day
March 2011: apx 1700-1800 sales/day
March 2012: apx 1800-1900 sales/day
June 2013: apx 700-800 sales/day
March 2014: apx 600-700 sales/day
March 2015: apx 600-700 sales/day
April 2016: apx 600-700 sales/day
March 2017: apx 700-800 sales/day
March 2018: apx 800-900 sales/day
March 2019: apx 700-800 sales/day

So the big decline occurred after 2012, consistent with the significant drop in traffic. But has been relatively steady since then. Now, that of course doesn't reflect the status of any individual seller...just that the site overall is relatively consistent during the past 6 yrs.

There is no ready solution to this problem, b/c Google, the primary search engine on which non-destination selling venues rely for exposure, has chosen to no longer be a neutral catalog of the web. My approach...and mine alone...has been to list on as many acceptable venues as possible, given that we can't predict what search will be successful on any random day. Google has even crushed that, by no longer indexing or giving weight to certain selling sites...and a number of venues have folded in part b/c of it. But to my mind, more potential exposure is better than less.

You have sold about 170 products in the past yr. If there is another comparable no-cost-to-seller site on which your items would be more successful, then perhaps go there. But what is the upside to closing an eCrater store?
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:19 am    Post subject: Re: ecrater long term traffic slide, getting ready to close Reply with quote

FoxAndFish wrote:
So the big decline occurred after 2012, consistent with the significant drop in traffic. But has been relatively steady since then. Now, that of course doesn't reflect the status of any individual seller...just that the site overall is relatively consistent during the past 6 yrs.

What that does not reveal is … which sellers (from what countries) are booking those orders ? The site may be moving orders, but I'm not convinced the same sellers are selling that did 10 years ago.

I am down, both here and on the big-E. BL is helping, but that's about all.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just checked my records and a sad tale indeed, especially knowing most of it was due to Google. I did as many workarounds as I could. I started here in 2008, in 2009 I kicked eBay out of my life and went full on eCRATER. In 2010 I made close to $18K! Around that time someone asked me in response to a post I made if that was sales or numbers of items listed. Someone else answered and said that no way could someone make $10K/year selling sewing patterns! HAHA! Laughing

Anyhow by 2012 things had dropped and I started using Amazon again. At that point in time, I had hardly any competition there. Between the two venues, we have kept food on the table and the lights on. Currently, this year is lining up to be one of our better ones out of the last few, but you can't really make good predictions out of the first three months of a year.

I agree with why close a store that isn't costing you anything to keep it open unless you just don't have time to make sure any sales on other venues are reflected here. Which is why I only use two venues plus the fact that they are both free to list which is the only way I can list the amount of inventory that I do. I was going broke on eBay with a store there and the listing fees. The month I had more fees than profits was the month I finally bailed.


Last edited by MoonwishesStore on Thu Mar 28, 2019 10:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@bakersbarrel, were you aware that your entire store is on hold? Also, you had a negative posted on the fourth of this month stating they had a problem and no one was responding to their email?

I think you have a lot of competition from sellers on eBay & Amazon that may not have been online prior to 2017. You might want to take a look at your titles and prices as compared to other sellers of the same items to see if you can find a competitive edge. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the way they are listed, but maybe a little more description may make your's more interesting.

Since your store is on hold, I couldn't see your Google Shopping placement, but you did seem to be getting good placement in Google organic and Bing.

I agree with the other sellers, I wouldn't close the store unless you are really going out of business. Even if you list on other sites, there's no cost to leave them available on eCRATER until you make a sale.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 10:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wonder if the store that is on hold is the one that he 'closed' but wants to use it to be able to post here?

I mention the negative to him too. It doesn't look like he has been back. He hasn't updated since the 14th.
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Fri Mar 29, 2019 4:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that is how it appears when someone is using the older layout, and places their entire store on hold.
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