What to do When Your Sales Are Down

Personally, I know what it feels like when something suddenly seems to change and your traffic patterns drop and your sales are down. What do you do?? You might start thinking all sorts of crazy things that can totally give you a panic attack. Instead of panicking, get to work on some or all of these 9 tactics in the meantime. These changes might also help things pick up for you, real quick!

First, you have to remember that almost all businesses experience seasonality in their sales over the year. There will always be lulls at some point annually, and maybe more frequently even for some niches.

Those who have been online for many years like I have, know that this is a regular part of business. It happens to blogs, or shops on Etsy, on Amazon, Shopify or any other seller platform there is.

Especially if your product(s) are fit for a very specific niche of some kind. That likely narrows your focus customer or shopping target, which is really good when your product is “in season”, but can cause drop offs at other times of the year.

For instance, in my IsaLee Designs shop, I primarily sell baby and girls’ dresses that are either short sleeved or sleeveless. So, my sales typically are higher in the warmer months of the year.

My designs are also targeted mostly for particular holidays and events, like birthday parties and spring or summer weddings, for example. So, it makes sense that in Nov-Dec my sales are much lower than at other times of the year.

But, even for products that might not be that seasonal, there’s just so many factors that could be causing a change to your sales, that are totally out of your control. Like the….

• Economy
• Politics
• Weather
• Global events

But what things can you control? What can you do during these lulls or down times to keep yourself busy, excited and motivated?

Here’s a few ideas:

(1) Update your shop listings. Improve your listing copy, take new photos, or create new listings of variations of your products. You can also add more details about each item, shorten your lead times, or add other specifics.

(2) Work on improving your SEO. You can and should be updating this several times per year anyway. A good resource is Etsy Rank. They have a good keyword tool that can be helpful as you work on improving your Tags.

(3) Come up with some new items to sell for your “off season”. For instance, I could start offering dresses with long sleeves, warmer fabrics, or other clothing all together like pants. (Which I plan on doing soon!)

(4) Work on some totally new items. For example for me, I could start making boys clothes, I could work on more quilts in different sizes and colors. I could start making other designs and add new categories all together.

(5) Research what is selling now. You can spend time also trying to see if you can pick out those items that are trending. You could also so a search on your platform, and see which items come up first. Review them and see what they might be doing better or different than you are, that you could take cues from.

(6) Improve your social networking. If you haven’t already, you definitely want to use Pinterest to get traffic to your shop or your site. It’s by far the best marketing tool that I’ve used. Tailwind can be helpful too, but I have found it’s not absolutely necessary to get good results. But it does save time! You can also check out my article where I tell you how to boost your Pinterest views which will hopefully lead to increased traffic.

(7) Work on your other marketing. Here I’m talking about your email list. (which hopefully you’re already working on right?) They are definitely your prime targets to market to. Those who have willingly signed up to hear from you, really want to hear from you! Let them know what you’re working on, what you’re up to, what new products you might have, what’s on sale or discounted, or what you’re planning for the near future.

(8) Prepare your next season’s products in advance. If possible, you can use this time to work on actually making or preparing products for the next season. For instance, if you have a product you want to sell a lot of during Easter, you should definitely be focusing on prepping and/or making those products now. Look ahead and try to forecast what you will focus on for the coming year and starting planning backwards at least 3-4 months to start working on those tasks.

(9) Work on making or revising your Goals. From personal experience, it’s hard to strive to reach for a certain dollar or sales amount if you haven’t made any goals. Goals are what drives you to work harder to get there. If I have a goal of making $1000 this quarter, I’m going to work as hard as I can to try to get there. That usually makes me come up with new ideas and helps me be more creative in looking for ways to improve.

Wrap Up

Also, if you’re in need of ways to help keep yourself organized, take a look at my newest product launch, this Daily-Weekly-Monthly printable planner.

I created this to help keep myself on top of my projects, planning and goals, and have had several people request that I provide them for sale. So, they are now available in my newest Etsy shop, LaterMeansNever on Etsy.

Let me know in the comments below, what you think of them and what other “planning” products you might be interested in?

And don’t forget to sign up for my email list to hear all about my latest news and get helpful tips right to your inbox!