Redbubble | Slow Sales

Sales Slow For Redbubble

I have been so busy lately that I didn't notice a pretty big drop off in RB sales since Dec. 2018.

Although t is pretty common in POD or any other E-com enterprise for big slowdowns to happen, it is my first with Redbubble.

Though this could be attributed to many factors it does always make me wonder.

Although I will not defame RB for anything here, as I have always felt they have been really fair with designers, paying on time and in full.

Let's take a look:

Traffic Jams                                                 

The first thing I always like to look at is my traffic:

• Is volume the same or close
• Are my Key Words, Tags Stale (this does change over time)
• Are my designs stale
• Is there more competition in the niche or (platform)
• Are my designs and text compliant  (TM infringement can be a factor)

Since I rely heavily on organic and platform paid PPC these are a few things that jump for me.

Things To Do

As with most things in life, your designs may need a new or refreshed look. Tweak those if need be, and reload ( I know it is work, but..)

Look at your Tags (keywords) and descriptions refresh those as needed. 

Sometimes if you refresh the listing it helps just to give it air time, meaning like a post, if refreshed or updated it gives things a shot of adrenaline.

Are You Active Enough

I am not sure if this one is true, but it seems to be for me. If I am not uploading every week things drop off for me.

Most of my sales happened when I was uploading from June to Sept. then I was just to overwhelmed with FBA 4th quarter. Then sales slowly dropped as my activity dropped.

I know this is important on Etsy, maybe its reverse on Merch by Amazon, etc. but it is something I did notice.

 Too Much Competition                

This is a given, but I don't believe it is a reason not to sell.   

There are around by some accounts 700,000 designers and artists working with RB.

I am sure they are not all active, and probably many are part-time or hobbyists. I am not that great but have sales under my belt. 

It is about as usual the content. Though there are some super awesome artists there. Your designs will sell if the right eyes see them.

Is Your Pricing Reasonable

This is a new designer`s (no experience with e-com or design) runs into, thinking the design can be sold for big money.

The way it works is on a percent basis, RB asks $40 for the shirt or.. you ad your margin on top like 20 percent.             

Some go high, but there is a limit, some shirts go for pretty high prices, play with this if you're not in a hurry if you want sales faster go to 20 percent or lower, and 100 to stickers.

Google Analytics

This is how you can check your traffic volumes. Though RB has a traffic chart on the dashboard, using google will help you understand what is happening on the site. 

For example:

You may see a lot of traffic coming into certain URLs  (designs) and then bouncing out, this means your Keywords and descriptions may be wrong or the design is not what people want. 

GA is great for a good many reasons, giving you tons of data, such as times, devices, cities, countries, it is an amazing amount of data.

It will also give you a Male/ Female searchers perspective, which can be important, and like many data collection apps, ages etc.

How Can Analytics Help

The data you get can really be applied to your POD business, it can decide, for instance, if your female users are much higher than male, what type of designs or niches you may choose to target.

It could also help decide your keywords. It's an amazing tool, but it's up to each person on how they use it.

If you decide you could use that information, including times, to run PPC on Google, Bing etc. to target, even Geo targetting, if you can see that.

It can also help to Identify bad URLs ( designs) that get too many bounces, delete those, Google looks at bounces in an unkind manner.

 You can also build a funnel using this ;) start at A, finish at C, kind of thing, helps with the overall design.

  

Throttled?

 I`m not sure on this, I will enter an opinion though;)

If it was my business I would want to front page or advertise things that sell, keeping shelf space for other things as well.

I also know that if you target your KW correctly your organic traffic will match the traffic from RB PPC or better it (Redbubbles own advertising)

So throttling, I think it is not a huge factor for most of us.

As well though it's maybe somewhat of a factor, RB bought out TeePulic for $54 million bucks last Nov/Dec. 

If that was my investment, though the two platforms are supposed to work independently, I would certainly pay a bit of attention to that, maybe splitting traffic etc, just test that if you want to start a TeePublic account.

Most designers or POD businesses are all cross-platform anyway, its work but you can't put all your eggs in one basket.

As far as I am concerned RB is a really good POD and I have not had any issues with them.  Payments are always correct and on time.

Make sure your stuff doesn't infringe and you follow TOS, keep as active as you can and be proactive as far as studying KW and niches (for organic) go, and if you dare, do some PPC on Google etc, also share your store to your social platforms.

I hope this was a bit of help and encouragement for someone, it's not easy some days to stay positive, but if you continue to work at it, you will grow.

All the best and really All the Very best in your future endeavours

If you have any comments or questions leave them below and I will respond as I can.

Ej