The begining of the end.....

[supermarketworker]

So this should be the busiest week of my year online sales wise and its turning out to be deathly, turnover is down on the last 2 years - i gave up advertising on mumsnet classifieds as i find them to hard to find now and my usual £40 adwords i have bumped to £100 this month courtesy of a voucher but still im on 6 clicks today resutig in 3 small sales . ANyway my point is i am thinknig of wrapping in and after 6 years im reluctant to just sell all my stock and let it die of natural causes so how do you go about selling and valuing an online business. Is it just a recession thing - are you all suffering? Do i just need a kick up the arse......

What kind of business do you have? What do you sell?

real nappies

Do you mean not disposable? Can you diversify? Where do you come in an online search? Is your company listed near the top?

yes not disposable - if i put my business name in i come top . if i puti nthe nature of my business real/ cloth / reuseable nappies i come knowhere near butif i put a particular brand i sell as do my competitors (goes off to check) i appear somethimes on page 1 and sometimes knowhere fooking near , i need to learn about optimisation dont i? my google ads are popping up though......

If I were you I would contact local mother and toddler groups etc to arrange to take them down and get them sold. But I would try to be quick about it because I think there's a bit of bad press threatening them right now. Do you have alot of stock?

(really sorry to hear about your predicament - it's not easy to start, let alone finish, a business)

i have been there flork1, went round loads in the early days and knowone was interested - we is ooop north - most of my online custoers are south off us or abroad and what with funding being pulled from local councils who had schemes im losing alot of advertising and one off customers .

its not all bad, i work as well so its not like we rely on the income but its been good when we had it - now it just seems like its not and its just a big elephant sat in my spare room.

good to hear you sounding quite 'up' about it. if there isn't alot of stock you could bag it up prettily and give it out to pregnant friends and family in lieu of presents. (?) if there's a load do you know of anyone down south you could liaise/stay with to set up group meetings etc to sell it?

There's a poster on the nappies thread asking for advice on non disposable nappies....get over there, you might get a sale!

see i went to bed and missed that one lol! I feel fighty today - i am off to my proper job today so going to be actively thinking !!!! I used to have my business name in my user name but then relaised i was highly traceable when posting - perhaps i should venture back but then people think you have just joined to spam yourself - i am a long timer dontya know

Do you know/understand what exactly is/has changed?

Can you do a thorough evaluation of the market you're in - do a SWOT - Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats

Is your business doing more badly than your competitors do you think?

I'd be inclined to give it one more shot. Identify your issues and weaknesses and make a plan to address them. Look at any new opportunities.

Do you have anyone 'business-minded' who you could discuss it with, who might help you?
If not, someone like Business Link might be able to help.

PeopleperHour is a good place to find people wo can do SEO for you. DH has employed people there on a 'resulst only' basis- i.e. he only pays them if they achieve the ranking they both agree in advance....

Perhaps if you have the stock already and the website already there, it's worth giving it a final big push. After all, you have very little to lose and the potential for gain.

But, definitely key to it is being found on search engines, in particular Google. If you cannot be found easily, then SEO is definitely the way forward. It's easy to fritter away money on Adwords if you're not careful, and besides, ideally you want to be found organically on the natural search listings.

In the last couple of years, online's become a lot more sophisticated and your competitors have probably been tweaking and refining away. Unfortunately it's one of those things (like many things) that if you don't continue to improve - be it through SEO, better usability, a nicer design, etc, then you risk getting left behind.

As well as PeoplePerHour, you can try and do it yourself. There's a lot of info online, e.g. SEOMOZ:

www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Good luck with it.

thanks i am mid swot and yes probably got a bit complacement with it all, new whipper snapper competitors do come and go in a blink of an eye so i think i do benefit from longevity ! I am reading on thingy optimisation right now and dh is going to have a look tonight as apparently he knows a bit about it . Dh keeps telling me to diversify , i dont want to be lumbered with a load of non selling tat thats my problem, early on i did stock some maternity wear and dodgey baby tee shirts which i still have 2 or 3 off lurking which never really took off . Yes i need to diversify i do your right cheapy ideas welcome

bloody hell think i best read that when im not so tired - think i will give thems people people a buzz

Hello supermarketworker, I too sell reusable nappies - you can probably tell by username!! My online sales are very small now. As you say there are so many websites selling nappies now. I am doing well though, but only locally - lots and lots of talks at NCT and NHS antenatal classes etc. It's time consuming and not as quick as selling off a website. I would be wary of diversifying though - I too have lots of "things" that I have bought that are baby-related and I ahve found very hard to shift. If you want to message me, we could compare nappy-selling tactics!!