"summer slowdown" has begun already..?
 

any other paysite operators noticing a dramatic slowdown for the last couple of days? our signups have dropped near 50% since wednesday, and many more cancellations than normal as well... good thing the earlier half of this week was just amazingly profitable, else i'd be shedding tears of blood right now.

when i look back at last years numbers, it didn't seem that the summer slowdown kicked in until around the first week of june, has it come early this year perhaps, or has the worldwide economy dropped worse than i've noticed this week..? ah well, up and down as always..

Summer slowdown is an urban legend.

I wish I have a bit of time off that I can actually enjoy summer this year. :)

the warmer it get´s ... the stronger we get !!!

Surfers don't wank in summer?

3 Things work regardless of what, Fetish Sites, Dating Sites, Escort Sites

this week looks about the same as last.

Summer what? ....never heard of it

The "summer slowdown" as it applies to this business is a myth. Before the internet became a household word (say pre-1995/96) there was a noticable summer slowdown on irc and usenet. This was largely due to that fact that most of the denizens of the net at that time were university students who didn't have internet access at home. These days students make up a much smaller percentage of internet users and most of them have internet access at home.

Blaming poor traffic/signups/retention on the summer slowdown is just a way of not taking responsiblity for the performance of your sites/traffic.

huh... k, thanks for the input friend. we've been running a family of paysites for over 3 years now, and for all of those years there has been a drop in sales during the summer months, w/ an inevitable upswing in mid august. also, all of our sites are fetish-specific in nature, for whatever that is worth... just curious if others are seeing similar happenings, very often we find parity w/ other webmasters here, both w/ slowdowns and heavily profitable periods..

We certainly haven't noticed a slow down yet.. In fact, quite the opposite... SO FAR!

:Graucho

I don't notice a slowdown
Last weekend was the best I've ever had.

* shrug *

for us too Marcus... up until this last wednesday, i was shocked at how good sales had gotten... hopefully ours will pick up tonight..!

Theres nothing more frustrating than a few days of slow sales.
Try not to worry about it
here have a beer
http://www.teenvag.com/cheers.gif

hehe, thx friend... i think i will do just that. Asahi extra-dry, here i come..! http://twash.com/temp/coolio.gif

Het Chuba call me


Joe
818 822 4856

We've been running our sites since early 1999 and in that time we've never experienced the summer slowdown, the holiday slowdown, the post-holiday bill slowdown, the tax slowdown, etc. Perhaps our traffic (mainly search engine) is less affected by seasonal issues than other sources.

Does finding parity with others really matter? Some will say they're down, others will say they're up and others will be more or less the same. Almost every day we've performed poorly, there has been a thread here asking if others are doing poorly. However on days we're doing well there are still threads here asking if others are doing poorly. No matter what situation you're in, you will always have company. I'll admit that it makes me feel better to know that others are in the same situation we're in, but knowing that doesn't put money in the bank.

The point I was making, and perhaps I was a bit harsh in making that point, was when you assume that poor performance is out of your control you ensure that it is. Maybe the slowdown you're seeing is caused by people wanting to go outside or maybe its caused by a router dropping packets. If you assume that its because people are spending more time outside you won't look as hard for the router dropping packets and thus might not discover it for days. On the other hand if you always assume that "something must be wrong" you may worry yourself to death but you'll catch those problems much quicker.

too true my friend, couldn't have given me better advice for a still-virgin friday night. i'm opening my second beer in a few minutes, you have a good one as well..!

http://twash.com/temp/kiss.gif

What processor? Myself and a few other people I know have seen a huge drop on sales with one company for more or less exactly those dates. Feels more like far too heavy scrubbing which would certainly make sense if it's the same processor.

Chuca do you control the majority of your feeder traffic, or do you rely on your affiliates (if you've got 'em) for that?

Reason I ask is that I've *seen* people slack off in building just before summer. Not sure why - most likely it's the after-christmas-new-computer-boom gets them a little too comfortable and they sit back and relax. Rather than focusing on the summer, which is right around the corner and *immediately imminent* in search engine submission time (you should look to submit a site about 3 months before the season/period you're targeting), they just kinda smile at their ratios and figure "hey, I can take a few days off... things are going good!".
Pretty soon that few days becomes a habit until they take a peek at their stats and notice that the traffic has died down and with it, the sales.
So they start building again, but factoring in that 3-month search engine spidering wait, it won't be until August when they see the results of their renewed efforts.

So if you're relying heavily on your affiliates for feeder traffic, this might be why you're seeing less signups.
I believe there *is* a summer slowdown - but it's not caused by the surfers, it's caused by the webmasters. The guys who keep working steadily never see a slowdown.

hmm, the past few days appear to have been alright over here.

the fact that ibill is ditching online checks and that paypal is ditching the whole adult industry is probably making some difference here and there but I really haven't noticed any general slow down yet...

yr scaring me ;P

this summer bullshit was brought up in some chat board I think it was hahahahahahaha back in the beginning as a cheap tactic for the excuse for sponsor's to shave the shit out of you if they wanted too? and traffic only drops very little in the summer months. it's another story if the sponsors your promoting want to pay? and lastly the winter wasn't at all kind to us webmaster's a profit that were being made were down?.. Visa is fucking around and the SE's want to much per-click to be listed in the engines. my opinion
It all comes down to George Bush your loving President that shouldn't never been in Power.. fucking the nation and putting North america in a poor damaged state? this is what I see down your way.. the little kid wants his oil.. and less taxes being collected form webmasters because there's less income being generated? he fucked everyone.. and lost billions in tax collections
to get that black Gold..

I agree. And they probably all get the idea from the "summer slowdown" talk going around the boards. ;)

wwwaaahhhhhaaaaa

the sky is falling the sky is falling

hum i dont know, but yes the sales have slowed down this week, by a lot for me...

man I can feel it too. only 40% of my daily income left... which is 4$

Something was off kilter for 1 day and 1/2 here too. I don't like mentioning sponsors in a bad light. But it was a big one that just went completely into never before seen numbers for the amount of traffic being sent.

Then it just zipped back to normal.

The primary processor used by this sponsor is iBill.

too late, it already fell.