Google Shopping traffic almost disappearing

[SteveGerencser]

Every single day! We have a script that creates a Google base compliant xml file. It's uploaded with a cron job. We also have a backup .txt file that we manually upload just in case the CRON didn't work.

Did you update your feed to take in to account the new rules for Google shopping? I actually dropped my feed rather than go through the hassle of meeting their new requirements. The new rules went in to place way back in September, but their enforcement roll out has been very slow. If you didn't keep up to date then it may just now be finding you.

[outletseason]

I'm a bit confused. You say your traffic from Google has dropped from 200+ to zero but then you switch to low conversions. What are these conversions you are tracking (PPC only?). Do you have any natural SE traffic anymore?

What were your conversions before?

I checked the site and the first thing I noticed is that you are selling commodities. So the question is, would I buy from you instead of Amazon? The answer is no. I trust Amazon. When people are buying commodities the only thing that matters is price and trust. It's a balancing act.

1. Who has the lowest prices (including tax and shipping)?
2. Can I trust this seller?

So people buy from the lowest priced seller that meets their minimum trust requirements. So if Amazon is selling product A for $100 but "never heard of them and they have no reviews" is selling product A for $98.00, Amazon wins. Anyone would pay a 2% premium for 100% trust.

I don't trust your site. There is no reason I should risk buying from you when I have a dozen top rated sellers to choose from who sell the exact same thing.

This is the hard truth of it. Selling commodities is only a game the big boys can win because their massive volumes compensate for their razor thin margins.

Your contact page doesn't even have an address or a phone number. Why in the world would I buy inkjet printer from someone who won't make themselves accessible?

You are on the wrong site, as I said before the store is under /electronics/ subdirectory, the main site has nothing to do with it. it's a b2B company we run the store under the subdirectory electronics. Which is a completely different division and the focus of this thread. I never said I had traffic problems with the domain. I was talking about specific problems with Google Shopping! That's why when I mentioned the site I was referring to the subdirectory electronics, and only to that section, which is a complete site in itself. I really don't care about traffic to the B2B site because that business doesn't work with people purchasing online, it's import/export business in large scale, and it works completely differently. It involves international commerce as products are manufactured in one country and then exported to another. While the store is 98% US domestic, and the end customers are end consumers. A few small businesses or large businesses employees ... I am optimizing the store to target those. I compete with Amazon several times in the past and never had a problem, my problem is with Google Shopping not sending traffic as it used to. That's why I started the thread and asked for ideas on the store.
That's why I entered the site(store) URL between CODE tags, so it's not appearing as I am spamming links!

htttp://www.theoutletseason.com/electronics

BTW there is no info in the contact page we have The Find trust seals and other Trust Seals everywhere, if you click on them you have full contact info(The Find), we are an online store. Before we had pretty good conversions, but lately, the last couple months, after we did some improvements, Google Shopping traffic started to slow down.

[lpoulsen]

I looked at the site, and I see no reason why I would buy technical products from this site, where there is no evidence that there are any employees with actual technical knowledge. The product "descriptions" are one-liners. If were shopping for motherboards, I would want to read fairly detailed technical specifications. Two dollars lower price for a $200 motherboard is no bargain if it turns out it is not a well-designed board.

This whole business appears to be just another generic front for Ingram Micro. In my book, such vendors add no value to the product they dispense, and if Google is not sending them referrals, Google is doing a good job of curating the web!

I buy books and music mostly from Amazon (and Amazon Marketplace) and electronics mostly from NewEgg or from my local BestBuy store. Trust and evidence of someone that actually understands the products and may be able to answer questions.

[outletseason]

Did you update your feed to take in to account the new rules for Google shopping? I actually dropped my feed rather than go through the hassle of meeting their new requirements. The new rules went in to place way back in September, but their enforcement roll out has been very slow. If you didn't keep up to date then it may just now be finding you.

As I said the feed is in full compliance because we hired a service specialized in feeds, that creates them for us, every morning, so that's not the problem, the only thing we are not using are Google categories which is optional for our industries, required only for apparel and others.

BTW people never visit the main domain directly because Google Shopping posts the product URLs so they never see the main site, if they go to the store in /electronics and click 'Home' they will be back to the store. That's why we purchased another domain, to move the store in case something it's not working, but first we wanted some expert opinion on the store itself, if it had something that might refrain the customer to complete the purchase, other than the products prices.

---------- Post added at 04:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 PM ----------



---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:38 PM ----------

I looked at the site, and I see no reason why I would buy technical products from this site, where there is no evidence that there are any employees with actual technical knowledge. The product "descriptions" are one-liners. If were shopping for motherboards, I would want to read fairly detailed technical specifications. Two dollars lower price for a $200 motherboard is no bargain if it turns out it is not a well-designed board.

This whole business appears to be just another generic front for Ingram Micro. In my book, such vendors add no value to the product they dispense, and if Google is not sending them referrals, Google is doing a good job of curating the web!

I buy books and music mostly from Amazon (and Amazon Marketplace) and electronics mostly from NewEgg or from my local BestBuy store. Trust and evidence of someone that actually understands the products and may be able to answer questions.

interesting suggestion, but actually we sold many motherboards in the past because we do have technical expertise, in fact I am a computer engineer, and the staff is highly trained, if someone asks a technical question we try to reply it in no time, usually when in an online chat, we are partners with Cisco, Lenovo and others, so we have products that not everybody haves. The main question though was to know why the decrease from Google Shopping traffic. Unfortunately is too expensive to hire someone to enter descriptions for over 60000 products but we will add a button so anyone can ask questions, and NewEgg is a huge corporation, we can't compete with that money power but what we offer is friendly, knowledgeable service, that wants to help the customer first, other than sell something based just on price. As we can't show this online, we show it to everyone that sends an email an asks questions or ask for suggestions.

[marknc]

You are not alone outletseason. Don't give up competing with the giants. That's what they want. Make sure you are visible. I mean a phone number, lots of "about us" and start adding more content. Even a photo about yourself with a visible link to your "Faceache" profile.
As a shopper I always check around the smaller shops before going to amazon or ebay, even for commodities. I prefer to support smaller businesses if I can and will willingly pay a few pounds more to do so. I like to think others do too.
The internet is becoming like the high streets of every town and city in the uk, they all look the same, with the same corporate retailers, really dull. I hope the interent doesn't become like that but I fear it's going that way.
It seems that Google don't really care about any collateral damage to hard-working bona-fide small business websites they send down the drain with the so called spam they keep harping on about. Frankly spam in the SERPS is no big deal really and never has been. I usually find what I'm looking for if it's there at all. Lots of half-decent anti-virus software has phishing filters and alerts. Indeed I wonder what's really behind all these "Penguins" and "Pandas". A zoo of ego-heads playing games wiith peoples livelihoods. Ooops! there goes another great internet shop down the drain, another family in the dole queue! With all the money they have you'd think they could introduce a human interface. A contact point for mistakes. Instead they hide, faceless and unreachable, moving the goal posts without notice or concern.
This makes interesting reading - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/g...25?tag=nl.e019

[claybutler]

You are on the wrong site, as I said before the store is under /electronics/ subdirectory,

htttp://www.theoutletseason.com/electronics

.

No, I was at the right site. I'm shocked you actually had good conversions before.