Since Christmas we have  kept a close eye on our competitors and rivals in the children’s bedding and bedroom accessories arena – as they do us – and have found it to be a very illuminating and ‘rewarding’ experience.  I’ve implemented several new practices and, more importantly, learnt what not to do. Here’s a few things I’ve found

DO’S

Take a good stock inventory and get rid of those stagnant lines – visitors like bargains, use Ebay if necessary.

Check pages for simple SEO fixes – a few new keywords can make all the difference to those lucrative ‘long tail’ keywords, as can rising a few places in the Search Engines

Think about increasing your product descriptions or inserting some new relevant content – Google likes fresh food

Keep an eye on bargains from relevant sites – we’ve managed to buy some items from one of our main competitors at an excellent price – and they were happy to sell to us.

Consider joining forces with a friendly competitor – yes they are out there – to buy in bulk and negotiate a better price with suppliers

Be flexible with paying invoices – some suppliers are already suffering because of the big firms going bust,  be willing to pay upfront  – karma!

Keep an eye on your PPC campaigns, with so many January Discount Sales happening it might be prudent to pause them, if you’re bidding against competitors who appear to offer better discounts and prices, and are willing to waste pay good money for high positions.

Keep on eye on Google – see which shopping directories are appearing regularly on the first page – it might be worth while applying to have your site listed.

Is Google Checkout worth using – do some visitors prefer this option?  Is Google Base an option for you?

Do keep an eye on your competitor’s prices, can you afford to tweak your’s and match them? or are their prices low because they’re not VAT registered and don’t have your overheads – you can’t compete on price with these companies – BUT they’ll either go under or have to start charging VAT eventually.  In the meantime concentrate on good customer service and getting that ‘free’ traffic.

DON’TS

Think carefully before buying those crazy bargains that suppliers are keen to offer this time of the year – if you can’t shift it, it’s not a bargain.

Don’t be tempted to put on a false sale ie Increase your prices just before you start your 10% sale – bound to come back and bite you on the legs!

Definately don’t be tempted to use ‘black hat’ methods to climb the SERPS – one of our competitors has been hacking vulnerable blogs to place back links – I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he will be penalized.

Don’t use automated software to get your link into hundreds and thousands of crappy sites.

Be careful if you’re thinking of paying for links – I definitely wouldn’t do this – the immediate benefits might be substantial – the long term penalty a sod to recover from.

Don’t be tempted to load your pages with tons of keywords (keyword stuffing) in the guise of content – Google’s not daft

Be careful when formulating a ‘Winter Sale plan’, look at your margins and overheads – 15% discount might bring in the customers, but if you’re paying for most of your visitors then that 15% will easily rise. If you’re also running an affiliate programme offering 8-10% commission, don’t forget to factor that in – that 15% discount might turn into 25% – and even more if you’ve forgotten about the current ‘free p&p over £25? voucher code – not many businesses survive if they’re actually losing money on the majority of sales!

Since implementing and taking note of all of the above we have found that over the last 10 days we have out performed last January’s figures – no mean feat in this economic nightmare – so the key is DON’T PANIC and remember Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity

first posted January 15th, 2009

The reason is that all our energies, mine, Dave’s and OurKev’s, have had to be poured into Children’s Rooms.

In August, after several weeks of negotiations, we parted company with Andrew and Julie.  Dave and I now have complete control of the company.

This coincided with having to move lock, stock and barrel to larger premises, which needed a complete overhaul and refitt – walls knocked down, new shelving put up, new computer systems installed and new staff trained – and then a major restock. (not to mention our home extension, garden landscaped and granddaughter to play with)

The above although time consuming and labour intensive proved to be quite simple compared to the PHP and Mysqul I found lurking behind the front of the Children’s Rooms website – I don’t do PHP and Mysqul – (I struggle with Dreamweaver and html)  so it’s all quite a mystery, gobbledegook and unfathomable.  Thank heavens that Andrew ensured that the day-to-day running of the website is quite straightforward and as long as no-one clicks anything unfamiliar we should be OK.

Unfortunately one victim of the takeover has been the Children’s Rooms Product Feed – many items appear to be out of stock and it’s not showing any of the new products – I can only apologise for this and ask that all affiliates be patient and assure them that having a successful Affiliate Programme is high on our list of priorities.

We have had several offers of help from our friends in the Affiliate community, but have asked  Bronco to investigate with the emphasis on ‘mending’ the product feed as soon as possible.

So the last couple of months have been something of a roller-coaster ride, it’s been very emotional and draining, tempers have been frayed, voices raised (me and Dave) and many sleepless nights – but we’re both convinced that Children’s Rooms and Allkids will be worth all this effort and look forward to 2009.

first posted October 6th, 2008