Our survey said!

Thanks to all of you who took part in our recent survey.

As promised I am posting up the results of the survey which was really interesting. We sent the survey out to thousands of our customers and hundreds of you took the time to answer for which we thank you.

Our first question was quite simply, how are you?

52.8% of you said that things were going well and a further 10.4% said things were going very well.

Those who said not bad but business is tough accounted for 29.5% and only 1.5%  were desperately waving a flag for someone to help them

Given we are in an economic situation where even Argos and Tescos are struggling I would say that Best Years customers are doing very well compared to the rest of the market. We've always said you must have good sense to chose to work with us and that shows in your sales!

We then asked whether your internet sales had gone up in the last year

31.2% yes

19.2 no

21% about the same

Not had internet for full 12 months 21%

So internet sales are still growing and many more of you are going on line.

We have been on Twitter for a couple of years and joined Facebook this year as well so we were interested in seeing how many of our customers also used and/or liked social media

87% who answered had a facebook account

53% had twitter

26% had a linkedin account

12% had blogs

What was really interesting however was we asked whether social media had been useful

35% have gained customers

30% had got valuable feedback via their social media presence

But 20% of you either hadn’t thought about social media or actively didn’t want to have a social media presence. Hopefully these figures may make you think twice about this.

If you are just overwhelmed with how on earth to start we have a couple of blogs on the website about increasing sales through social media , using Twitter and Facebook and general social media info 

Finally in this section we asked about who did your SEO

10% don’t know what it is,

10% had an external company to do it

10% of you are very knowledgeable and do your own

40% do it themselves but don’t have huge knowledge

25% don’t do anything

The lovely Claire Jarrett from Web Marketing has helpfully written this short blog to give you some hints and tips about SEO. She is the only person Best Years have worked with on internet marketing where we have renewed our contract so if you are looking for outside help we would recommend her

We showed you the potential new products for autumn and got some fabulous feedback

Crochet monsters – very popular with just about everyone. These will be in stock end of July

Gingerbreadman – When a valued and long term customer asks whats a new product is suppoed to do you know you need to do some more work! Our gingerbread man has gone back to the drawing board

Nutcracker and Ballerina– This was popular but you thought it was too expensive so the size and price have been reduced so they can now retail for around £20. In stock from end of July

Pixie doudous – we have added eyes as many retailers didn’t like the lack of faces. in stock end of July

Stripy t rex – very popular. should be in August

We got some fascinating results from where you find new products

Majority of you found new products through the internet and by using existing suppliers. We were very surprised that 22% don’t go to trade shows ever. Wow!

Many people are more open to emails and literature than we thought but agents are universally disliked.

Trade magazines were not read as they are freely available on internet and you could cherry pick up to date articles on things you were interested rather than wading through a published magazine. We have never really advertised in trade magazines but I think that this survey will ensure we don't succomb to the urge to advertise in print ever again!

Finally we had lots of friendly suggestions about how we can improve which we will hopefully be able to implement. Some people thought we had a moq which we don’t but most people like our blogs and newsletters which is great news

Thanks again for replying to our survey. The winner of the prize draw will be contacted this week and we will definitely be asking some more questions nearer Xmas