What happened in October to kill my views?

I know views go up and down every year, and I know that some people are doing better than others, but I’ve seen a sharp drop in views since October 2014 and it’s just getting worse with every month. What happened in October to affect them so badly? And is there anything I can do to help them recover? My promoting habits didn’t change suddenly back then, my Plus account didn’t expire until December, so I was still relisting the same (if not more!) - I really don’t understand why the views just stopped! You can see on the graph that July-Sept were higher than the previous year, April and June were a bit down, but Oct-Dec look like a ski slope, whereas last year they were climbing!

My views plummeted at about the same time, although it looks much less dramatic on the graph now than it did at the time. At the time the slope was rapidly nearing the ground! Overall your graph looks much better than mine, which is way below last year’s all the way… I’ve no idea why there was such a sudden downturn, though…But, as they say, the only way is up now!

Is it just here or are you getting drops around the same time in your other shops?

I had this happen around October last year, and it was over all of my selling sites so I knew it was bigger than a site problem and I managed to trace it to Google changing the way their search engine found pages in September 2013. It was re-categorising them all, which meant a drop in views around Oct/Nov 2013 then the views started coming back as my pages went back into the searches.

Haven’t noticed anything odd this year though, but I don’t look at the Folksy view thingy (it always seems to be broken from what I see here), I only use Google Analytics to see viewing figures. And with the 3 selling sites I can see if one if suddenly looking odd against the others.

Hi there! I can’t say anything about sales as I’ve not had any since I’ve been on Folksy (no, not a sausage!) but my graph for views for Oct/Nov was pretty dire and I for one had increased my promotion of my pages. I wondered if this might be something a bit more wide ranging than changes to the website. High Street promotion has been very aggressive this year and I wondered if maybe after everybody had binged on all the deals on the High Street, culminating in Black Friday, they had no money left and therefore weren’t looking anymore. The big boys seem to be getting in on the “handmade” act and consumers may not realize the difference between something made with love and care in the UK and something that is just finished by hand in a factory in China.

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I thoroughly agree Samantha,

There is a huge difference in handmade and ‘hand finished’. I spend hours cutting out papers and stitching beads and lace, etc. to my cards and then I see something for the same price which is clearly printed but finished off with an item stuck on by hand. It can be very deflating but I don’t want to lower my standards so like the rest of us I live in hope that I will eventually get noticed.

Jeanie

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This is my graph @ciesse as you can see its very similar to yours.

Hi @JoSara - no, everywhere else has seen an increase in those 3 months, much like last year on here. I wondered at first whether it was because I was promoting my other shops instead of here, but actually I’ve spent less time promoting the others, as they didn’t seem to need it so much. It’s a mystery, and it will now only get worse, as I’ve decided to focus my promoting where it seems to lead to more sales, which is sadly not here. It’s not just views that are down on here, it’s sales too, otherwise I wouldn’t mind so much.

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My graph for this year is very similar to last. It drops for the summer months starting when with our motorhome trip in June and you can almost pinpoint the moment we returned from our September trip.
(The dip compared to 2013 earlier in the year was the Vietnam trip)
This may not be helpful for those with an October dip but it does show that it’s not right across Folksy.

I noticed a drop in page views when the new front page design came in. Whilst I like the front page, I miss the views the recent activity bar used to send my way. I do wish there was some sort of prominent link on the front page that would take customers to a page with all recent activity on it. It would really help with visibility. At the moment I can’t see much point having Folksy Plus, as re-listing often, won’t help me to get seen. If my shop expands to a couple of hundred items (which I could do, if it’s really worth all that time and effort) it would be a different matter. I will be trying new ways of getting seen in the New Year, including putting my stuff on the other side. Time to do a compare and contrast… Although, I’d rather be here really… :confused:

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I feel your pain! There is so much of that kind of stuff about!

My view % has shot right up from a minus to a plus 100% today. Haven’t got a clue why either.

My views have been a bit up and down but have generally been increasing since about July, which is more or less exactly what happened last year. April, May and June were awful this year and sooooooo much lower than last year but they have climbed steadily since and by November reached exactly the same levels as last year and were higher for December. Just hope it continues! :smiley:

Are you looking at the ‘views compared to last week’ figure? If Christmas week itself was very quiet, that week would be down (a -%) on the week before, and any views this week would put it up in comparison.

Also, you can never take much notice of the final point on the graph until the last day of the month. Obviously it will always dive down to 0 on day 1, and climb up again through the month.

But it looks from the three graphs here (and mine too) as if December is always down compared to November (which seems logical, as people have other things on their mind than buying gifts in the last week or so).

Something that made my graph look just tlike @PaulinesCrafts, with the spike in November is that I did a revamp of all my keywards and added extra photos to each item in November, and every time you do that you view the item yourself! So my spike in November is actually just me . Though I have a lot fewer views than Pauline so it had a much bigger effect.

Just a few thoughts. Happy New Year to everyone!

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