My blogshop Beauty Personified did not do as well as I had hoped in 2011. In fact, it reverted to how it did in 2010, which is a drop of about 46%. At a profit of $4652.41, it's about $2200 less earnings than the all time high in 2010. The truth is, the blogshop was doing well all the year till the last quarter of the year, then came a drastic decline that came from nowhere.
I did think of quitting the blogshop but realistically speaking, more than $4k of spare change is still respectable money that helps offset my ever-increasing taxes and with excess to sponsor me on a short trip yearly.
I think it's important to think about why the great decline came.
1) The exponential growth of plus size blogshops is alarming. I used to enjoy some sorta oligopoly, but the number of players in the field has outgrown the growth of this rather niche market of customers. With more choices, customers can now compare prices and value-added services, so it's natural that they will tend to flock to cheaper options, and if they are not happy with that, they may return to me. Hopefully.
2) Competing with lower prices of my respectable peers has been difficult. Because there is no market yardstick, the same item can sell between a range of $20 in the online sphere. I have to say that the profit margins of some of the competitors are quite remarkably low. Possibly they are setting shop for the sake of pursuing a hobby rather than to profiteer. For the amount of work I invest in my blogshop, it's hard to move downwards. Therefore, in order to charge a little lower, I've decided to scale down my work on the blog.
3) Departure of bulk-buying customers. 2011 saw the departure and decline of a handful of most loyal customers of my blogshop. Perhaps due to the economic downturn, i do notice that many customers have cut down on the number of items ordered. There's nothing much I can do about this, except to showcase more special items, whilst keeping the price of items in mind.
4) I did some reflection and felt that perhaps some of my sprees which take too long to end. I'm an online shopper myself and I do hope to get my purchases asap too. So the logical solution would be to have shorter sprees with small orders to create faster deliveries.
I would still like to continue with the blogshop since it's been 4 years of labour, and it truly is, a hobby.
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