8 Things To Check If Your Online Sales Are Down

So it’s happened. Your online sales and revenue are down, the phones have been quiet and there are less transactions coming through your website’s shop. But, before your panic descends, just how do you go about locating the problem?

Here are eight quick things you can check if your profit has recently taken a plummet:

1. Which channels have seen the biggest drop? Are your transactions down across all your platforms? If so, there could be a wider problem, like a website error. If the drop is solely across one channel, like PPC or SEO, then you can investigate further into that individual campaign activity.
2. Search trends – is your business seasonal? Was there previously a huge spike in searches for your services, that may now have tapered off? Insights tools like Google Trends will allow you to study any patterns that may be affecting your sales.
3. Time spent on site – how long are your consumers spending on your website? Too short and there could be a technical problem, such as a slow page-loading speed (another indication of this can be a high bounce rate on the pages); too long and they may be having trouble finding what they’re looking for. If you have heat-mapping software this can be a useful tool to study the behaviour of your customers whilst on your website.
4. Average order value – if you’re still driving the same amount of sales, but your overall revenue is down, then it’s time to look at the average order value of your consumer purchases. Could you do something to increase this – like adding in a ‘suggested upsell’ list of products on to your website or at the check-out.
5. Quality of leads – are you still generating the same amount of quality leads? If you’re seeing a drop in booked sales but a consistent amount of enquiries, then the problem could be within your sales team itself, and not your online marketing efforts.
6. Year-on-year statistics – maybe you had a really good month previously, which is why your drop in sales looks worse than they actually are. Looking at your sales figures over a longer period of time, particularly year-on-year, will help you gain a better overview of your performance – especially if your services fare better in certain months.
7. Marketing spend – have you decreased your marketing spend, or weighted it to a new area? If so, that could be the cause for the drop in activity.
8. Have any new competitors entered the market? More competition means more choices for consumers and could impact your sales – particularly if your competitor has a special offer on or lower priced leading items.

How Can I Find All This Data?

For all the data you need to make an informed decision about the drop in your sales, you should be heading straight to Google Analytics. Most of the data from the above list can be gathered from a mix of Google Analytics, individual marketing platforms like Google Ads and Facebook, and your CRM data itself.

What Should I Do Once I’ve Spotted The Issue?

Once you’ve pinpointed an issue (or highlighted several) you should create a strategy to best combat it. Is the problem a quick fix, like a website error? Or will it require a longer period of time to recover from, such as a drop in SEO presence. If so it may be worth focusing additional efforts to other channels in the meantime, such as PPC, to try and bridge the gap in conversions.

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