What Direction Works?

No matter the year, no matter the economy, between the week before Christmas and New Year's Day, business slows down to a crawl. I was pleased as 2011 wrapped up and business was much better than last year. So, as the year ended, we were hit with a business bomb. If business bomb isn't a real term, well, I'm coining it right now! Over the past several years, we've used eBay is a big selling tool for our business. For me, it doesn't make me proud. Our business started in 1998 and over time, we moved from online auction type of marketplaces along with our website to our business being fully run based on the website, catalog, and phone. As the economy has tanked, we became reliant on eBay, once again. The percentage of business coming from there has honestly been too high for too long and with so much of our marketing budget going to eBay, it has limited overall growth potential of the business, once again. We run on a cash basis, so in good times, there is a lot more to work with in the marketing department.

Well, less than eight hours before the New Year, I get an email that our account has been temporarily suspended and we can't sell on there at this point in time. Does this have anything to do with our successful business on there? Nope. It has to do with an account that we had selling radios, vacuum tubes, and television components from my grandfather's store over five years ago. Somehow, there appears to be some small balance on this long defunct account, of which I have no idea about, but they are telling me that issues with that account have to be fixed in order for us to have our business back on their site.

I'm hopeful that this will be resolved within the next day or two, but regardless, this will radically change how business goes, once again. When we can use their service again, the amount of product offered through there will be dramatically reduced to 25% of what was available as of Saturday morning. We're back to radically changing the business model, tripling our AdWords, AdCenter, and BizRate account spending. In all honesty, it's the only way to grow the business in big numbers, once again, but it's disconcerting to basically have a sizable sum of your business income taken away overnight. This has always been the fear with eBay. They dicate the terms, their absurd fees, and can take businesses off of their system for no reason except that they choose to do so. I've read countless stories of businesses our size and ones bringing in literally millions of dollars to only see eBay shut their businesses down or to limit the dollar value of sales on their system. It didn't use to be like this, but when Meg Whitman took control, the business began to cater to big business and changed all the rules. If you're hurting a big enough client on there and causing them to not make enough revenue, well, beware as your business could be simply shut down.

So, here I sit on the 2nd day of the year. I expected slow business, as is standard this time of year, but not only do I have that, but a giant project to not only save this business, but to get it growing properly once again.

Eric