Serious issues, conversions, browser compatibility.

[mryang]

Hi everyone,

I have been a happy user of the forum for a while now and its done me the world of good. My site has been doing really well.... however I now have a situation that I cant find the problem or problems -

For the last 6 months we have been getting minimum 40+ orders every day and regularly over 100.... then last wednesday at lunchtime our orders just stopped.... down to 5 or 6 orders a day for some reason - can't work it out.... still getting the same amount of traffic but no conversions.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to help or give suggestions what I should do... is it something to do with our cart? Don't know because it works fine for me. Is there some browser issue that I don't know about or some warnings that the customers get - again that I don't know about?? Is there a problem with the speed of the site or an server problem?? Please test away and see if you can see my issues.

Please help me solve this problem, if someone is able to offer a complete service to fix any issues obviously I am willing to pay.

My site is Blank dvd disc and case products for duplication and replication.

[Dubbya]

Checked the site for functionality in IE6, IE7, FireFox, Safari and Opera.

The only significant issue I came across was that, in the Opera browser, your vertical menu on the left side of the page is missing.

From a design and usability perspective, it seems to work fine and I did not come across any issues that might explain such a significant drop in conversions.

A Google search using the phrase "DVD replication services UK" places your resulting listing on page two of the SERP's. It's not horrible but is not great either.

Are you certain you're seeing the same amount of traffic?

I'd start comparing prices, sale items and new product offerings on your competitor's sites.

Check out Google Analytics to see where they're leaving your site. If it's from a particular product page and it's normally a hot seller, I'd definitely think something must be going on over at your competition.

[arthurakay]

Your page was slow to load for me... in fact, I had to refresh it twice to get it to load at all. That would be an issue for me if I was looking to buy something you sell.

I have no way of knowing if that's a typical problem for your site, or it's just a random happening. I would check out your competition though.. and if you had been on page one of the SERPs before (assuming you are now on page 2) then that would cause a significant drop in purchases.

[danners]

>> still getting the same amount of traffic but no conversions.

Do you monitor your SERPs?
Do you log what keywords are used in traffic refferals?
Any changes in what terms that same amount of traffic is using?

I suspect its due to some change in your SERPs not your website (unless you changed something there?)

[arius]

Have you checked your SSL certificate. It might have expired and users might be seeing warning during last step of checkout. My experience, usually it is a checkout issue with these major conversion changes

[arius]

I just placed a test order on the site (4111 cc number, dont try to charge me, it is not going to work ).

I guess it is not SSL, but I think it might have to do with the shopping cart. I had a similiar experiences with one of our sites printcountry.com (US Ink cartridge, so not a competition to you) and it had to do with the SSL. Hope you solve it soon, I know how though it is on a business to go through this.

[Dubbya]

The SSL cert is fine.

It doesn't expire until May of this year and it validated through the Thawte site, so that's not the problem.

[jglogau]

Hi:

Do you have Google Analytics installed, including the conversion function. If not install it. Next set up a funnel for the total sale cart function. See if the sale funnel is dropping off a some point that normally it would not.

If you are really concerned you might use ClickTracks instead of GA. ClickTracks is log based and this way you can check all your stats before and after your dramatic sales drop.

I am assuming that your search/referrer traffic really hasn't dropped. But the analytics can help with this too.

Good luck.

[DrTandem1]

Your site does seem to take a long time to load. Even longer than I would expect the ~150kb size of the home page to take. I wonder, if it's due to the Google Analytics? I've never bothered with it myself.

I suppose you do most of your business in Europe. I did a search for DVD replication on Google and didn't see your URL in the first 50 results. I did see other UK businesses.

Since you say that traffic is the same, but sales are a mere fraction of what they were, something is chasing the potential buyers away. You didn't say what your big seller is. In other words, were most of your orders for some particular product or service?

[Bill in AZ]

I also noticed a rather long load time on your pages and I find the navigation somewhat lacking. My firefox browser actually locked up twice and had to be restarted while viewing your site, Not good! I would expect these issues to show up with a decrease in traffic. But if you are truely getting the same amount of traffic but people are not buying then you must look at the competition to see what they are doing you are not.

[edhan]

Yes. Your site is indeed takes a while to load. That really will turn people away as they will not wait too long for a site to load.

I also notice that it shows me a gray blank page before loading the index page. I do not really know what is the cause as it might gives the impression that the site is no longer function or something. This might also cause people to hit the back button.

[madjohn]

You're site loaded almost immediately for me, so it cannot be that that's preventing sales. It must be soemwhere else down the line of purchasing...

[mryang]

Originally Posted by edhan

Yes. Your site is indeed takes a while to load. That really will turn people away as they will not wait too long for a site to load.

I also notice that it shows me a gray blank page before loading the index page. I do not really know what is the cause as it might gives the impression that the site is no longer function or something. This might also cause people to hit the back button.

Is there a way round this grey page??

Also I have asked a few people here in the UK to test the site and they were happy with the speed, however I am really concerned that a load of you guys found it slow.... 150K isn't really too much is it??? It should fly for someone with broadband (ok please don't slate me now as I know everyone doesnt have it)... what is concerning me is this - does the page load at the correct speed for the size of the page or is there some deeper issue with my hosting meaning the site is not being served as quickly as it should and is there a way to test this???

[mryang]

I have done some investigation ... first thing I find is that the Verisign site seal is taking an average of 1.4 seconds to load!!! Anyone else aware of this as a problem?? And is there a fix other than to take it off the site!

[mryang]

OK, so moved the Verisign off the home page, definately loads quicker now.

I have had GA installed since last June. Loads of people are adding items to the cart then failing to complete the transaction... for example this month - start of funnel - shoppers added items to cart 3529 - proceeded to recalculate 2054 - proceeded to address entry 1657 - Entered credit card details and completed order 1249.

Seems very poor to me or is this normal!

[DrTandem1]

People often want to see what the total including shipping will be. The recalculate could be adding/deleting items. From the example you gave, about one third of those adding items actually completed the purchase. What you need to determine is why the other two-thirds abandoned the cart.

[noel_x99]

No body's really talking about what's different between the time you were doing 40-100 sales to just 5-6 per day.

Did you change anything? Was your site speed ever an issue before?

If you didn't change anything, did your competition change something? Did your competitors drop prices? Did they start a marketing campaign? As someone mentioned above - did your rankings change?

You said:

Loads of people are adding items to the cart then failing to complete the transaction

How do these numbers compare to before? Did you have more people coming in when you were making 40-100 sales? Or did you have the same number of people coming in and now more are dropping off than before?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by mryang

OK, so moved the Verisign off the home page, definately loads quicker now.

I have had GA installed since last June. Loads of people are adding items to the cart then failing to complete the transaction... for example this month - start of funnel - shoppers added items to cart 3529 - proceeded to recalculate 2054 - proceeded to address entry 1657 - Entered credit card details and completed order 1249.

Seems very poor to me or is this normal!

Not unusual at all, for reasons already mentioned by another.

However, a composite view will not tell you whether or not the rate of abandonment has changed; for that you'll need compare smaller historical views so as to be able to see if there is or is not a trend.

The bigger question though, is, rather than the number of orders completed, what, if any, change is observed in your incoming traffic? Has it remained essentially the same; or, has it too fallen significantly. A quick look at your conversion rates, from before and after the date in question, should suffice as a quick guage.

If the conversion rate has remained essentially the same, but your traffic has decreased, then you need to determine whether that was due to internal or external factors. Did you make any changes that would affect the number of visits your site receives? Did your competitors make any changes that would divert traffic away from your site?

[hamonpari]

SSL Authentication is taking too much time.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by hamonpari

SSL Authentication is taking too much time.

Odd; it's snappy for me.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by mryang

Is there a way round this grey page??

Also I have asked a few people here in the UK to test the site and they were happy with the speed, however I am really concerned that a load of you guys found it slow.... 150K isn't really too much is it??? It should fly for someone with broadband (ok please don't slate me now as I know everyone doesnt have it)... what is concerning me is this - does the page load at the correct speed for the size of the page or is there some deeper issue with my hosting meaning the site is not being served as quickly as it should and is there a way to test this???

Was it like that before the drop in sales? If so, then that's not the cause of your problem. But it is an issue you may want to address later when you've got the main problem resolved. Stay focused on the main problem,..

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by mryang

OK, so moved the Verisign off the home page, definately loads quicker now.

I have had GA installed since last June. Loads of people are adding items to the cart then failing to complete the transaction... for example this month - start of funnel - shoppers added items to cart 3529 - proceeded to recalculate 2054 - proceeded to address entry 1657 - Entered credit card details and completed order 1249.

Seems very poor to me or is this normal!

You need to compare the numbers before the drop in sales with the numbers after the drop in sales. Just looking at some numbers isn't going to tell you much.

Send me a pm and I'll give you my gmail address to add me as a user in Google Analytics and I'll analize your data for you. Then I can also tell you if what I suspect (less visitors, even though you seem to think that's not the case) is correct.