In Full Swing
November 13, 2009 at 9:51 pm | In bean bags, furniture, pillows | Leave a CommentTags: Cocoon Foam Chair, Giant Pillows, My Pillow Place, Pillow Sac
Ok, we are fully ready for Online Holiday Shoppers…I’ve gone though the process of adding all the products that I wanted to get up before the end of the year. I’ve posted deadlines on every product that has a holiday ordering deadline and I’ve optimized everything I could. As far as site improvement for www.my-pillow-place.com goes…there’s nothing more I can do this year. The site now can be put on autopilot and we can focus now, on customer service (which usually needs to be ramped up at this time of year.)
I’ve put some of our more popular items on a temporary sale: our very popular Comfy Cocoon Foam Chair and our very popular Jaxx Giant Pillow Sac. The products are great and very popular. We’ve put them on sale for a short amount of time (I haven’t decided how long yet). People are out looking for deals around the holidays in an economy such as this, so we’re trying to do our part to help people out. We’ll probably feature different products over the course of the month. To promote this on our site, we put a section on the left side navigation for “Today’s Specials” and this will hopefully generate some sales.
Now, being that online businesses usually see a very busy time between Mid-November to Mid-December, we’ve seen a little boost in traffic and sales over the last week. Hopefully it ramps up even more over the next few weeks. But our sales are lagging behind last year’s numbers at this date. It makes sense, even though the banking crisis hit last year in October, most people still had jobs. Right now, unemployment is really high. Less people are shopping.
In my personal life, I plan to cut back on shopping for the holiday’s since I lost my day job in June. I’m sure many other people will be doing the same. As we know, if everyone cuts back on shopping, the economy will get worse. We have a government who doesn’t seem to know how to stir economic growth and continues do everything the opposite of what would make business and jobs comes back. But, I digress.
Anyways, here’s hoping that those that still have jobs continue to buy things so that people continue to have jobs. Happy Holidays!
Holidays…so Soon?
October 28, 2009 at 11:30 pm | In online retailing | Leave a CommentTags: creative gift ideas, gift guide, holiday gift ideas
I know its eary…its not even November for goodness sake…but the internet works differently than real life, so its good to start planning ahead. I’ve updated our Holiday Gift Idea Guide Page. Removed products that have gone away. Added products that are new to My Pillow Place this year. And placed a link to that gift giving page up at the top of the left hand navigation so people will see it.
You see, there are two things that websites have to concern themselves with. Getting the new page indexed and the shipping time of some of the products on the website. So if you have products like ours. Products that have some manufacturing time associated with them. You want to encourage people to purchase early so that manufacturing and shipping times are not an issue. You see, even though it is exciting to get a boost in sales because of the holidays, you still stress out because you want everyone to receive their orders on time.
The first year for us was a nightmare. I won’t bore you with the details, but a mistake with one of our suppliers resulted in some people not receiving their gift orders until mid to late January. The stress of people not getting their orders is great. So we want people to order early, often and a lot…as any business does. We’re still adding new products to the site…so the holiday gift guide may still be growing.
Dog Beds Cometh!
October 24, 2009 at 2:58 am | In online retailing | Leave a CommentTags: rectangle dog beds, round dog beds
I was a beast today…I’ve added two new dog bed products today. Never in the history of My Pillow Place have I added two new products in the same day. Yes, I can see your excitement is shared. You feel it too, right? Round Dog Beds and Rectangle Dog Beds….lets add dog bed products till the cows come home. Or rather, till the Dogs come home…and when they come home, they’ll be able to choose between Round and Rectangular. Why were the dogs not home to begin with?
Anyhoo….the real news of the week is….well dog beds, see above…no, just kidding. This week has been a weird up and down week. Starting Sunday. Sunday night to monday morning was probably one of our top money generating time periods for about 8 hours…then then next day, nada…then the day after that….awesome…sales galore. Then then next day, nothing….it has been so inconsistent…I would just like to see slow and steady win the race…several sales every day would be a mind blowing experience…instead we get these drastic ups and downs…I guess I should just be thankful that we have ups, sometimes.
What’s Better than Folding Hide a Mats?
October 21, 2009 at 1:38 am | In online retailing | Leave a CommentTags: folding floor mat, soft chair
With the addition of our newest supplier, I’ve added our 2 newest products in the last few days…the Sitsational Soft Chair was added a few days ago and the Hide-a-Mat folding floor mat was added today. I’ve been trying to get these new products up before the holidays come, which seems to be quickly approaching. The economy’s up and down news is affecting how people spend money right now, and we have to get in position to earn some of that holiday gift giving money as we close out the year.
This is the time when most people spend some money even if they shouldn’t and it gives a boost to the economy. Last year at this time the bank crisis had just hit and we still did ok in terms of sales. The difference is that even though the crisis hit, many more people still had jobs. This year, many people, including myself, lost their jobs. And people with no money don’t spend.
I’m hoping beyond all hope, that for the sake of the country, things start to get better…can we have the mid-term elections this year? We need change!
Modern Kids Furniture
October 15, 2009 at 3:19 am | In online retailing | Leave a CommentWe’re starting to see some movement on a line of kids chairs, soft pillows and other modern kid furniture that we added a while back. A few months ago, we added 5 new products from one of our vendors that were smaller versions of some of our larger Foam Furniture pieces. Best thing is, they come in some kid friendly colors and at a much lower price point. After a few months of selling none of it, we’re starting to move these items. I’m glad because it really is good stuff. I didn’t know how to market these products though and I was afraid that we weren’t getting traffic for this type of stuff. I’m still not 100% sure how to market it, but it seems to be getting some traction on our floor pillows page and foam furniture page.
In my personal life, I’m starting to see more and more people I know face unemployment. In spite of the obama mania media telling us the economy is getting better, it really isn’t. I see it before me. An architect job that I seek is not available, and many of my friends are either getting laid off, or on the bubble. So I don’t see improvement. Many of my friends are worried about their futures too. They, however, don’t have an online business to fall back on like I do. But if so many people in the country get laid off that no one has any funds to buy our products, then I may as well not have a business because we’ll be making no money. I hope the economy improves soon, I’m just not seeing it.
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