Ruby Lane site glitches

I am getting very concerned about what seems to be ongoing glitches with the Ruby Lane website. I understand that Monday morning there was a planned outage (though many of us were unaware that this was going to happen), so the "server busy" message came up every time I tried to get onto the site for at least half an hour. But for some time now, when checking my daily shop Reports, I have noticed a tremendous drop off in visitors to my shop, in click rates, as well as sales. And the overall click reports indicate that most shops on Ruby Lane in general are receiving exceptionally low click rates. So I have been "visiting" Ruby Lane at different hours of the day and evening, just to see how the site is functioning. What I have found is that at various times, hit or miss, day or night, there are intermittent malfunctions where you cannot navigate from the home page. I have tried clicking on different categories. I have tried making searches for specific items. I have tried clicking on featured items. And all I get is that spinner. And when the spinner finally stops, I find I am still on the home page. This situation can last a few minutes or for quite a while. I read on another thread that other shops have noticed this, as well. I am wondering if buyers coming to Ruby Lane and experiencing such glitches are just getting frustrated and moving on to other sites?

Please note that I opened this discussion around 11:00 pm eastern time, when I found that I could not navigate from the RL home page. It is now about 40 minutes later and the problem continues.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by COBAYLEY on June 11, 2012 at 11:44pm

Yes...I am experiencing the same issues. I'm sure they are just working on the site...

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 12, 2012 at 12:08am

Why would they be working on the site at primetime browsing hours in the evening??

COBAYLEY said:

Yes...I am experiencing the same issues. I'm sure they are just working on the site...

Permalink Reply by Marni Bakst on June 12, 2012 at 1:35am

I made a sale at 11:45 EST tonight to a customer on the west coast.

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 12, 2012 at 5:32am

I am very happy for you. But my point is that this happens intermittently throughout daytime and evening hours. Obviously, there are times when the site is up and running fine, and customers can browse and make purchases. I am concerned for those times that I have come across, when you just cannot navigate the Ruby Lane site at all. I don't think newcomers to Ruby Lane are going to hang around and wait for the problem to resolve itself. They are just going to move on, assuming that the site does not function well. This is what is worrying me. I looked at the Reports from yesterday for my shop. Again, they show a coniinuing drop in numbers of visitors. But the click report is really stunning: "The recent average Click % across all Ruby Lane shops is 0.37%." Doesn't anyone else think this is unusually low???

Marni Bakst said:

I made a sale at 11:45 EST tonight to a customer on the west coast.

Permalink Reply by Graceful Antiques on June 12, 2012 at 7:37am

I am glad you put this here as I thought it may be my computer. I had many problems trying to go into categories as a shopper. Even tried signing out thinking this may have something to do with it.

Waited about 3 minutes to search for a particular item and many of the photos on main page grid were missing.

That was last night but seems all fine this morning so hopefully it has been fixed.

Permalink Reply by Antik Avenue on June 12, 2012 at 8:54am

I have been noticing this for a while also and hope they have been addressing it. It seems to me RL is having site issues since it "upgraded" around the holidays. My sales and click rates have also dropped significantly (could it be the economy?). I also wondered if it was my computer, but other sites seem to navigate smoother and quicker. I've been having photo problems with uploads and have noticed others have too. I was hoping this last site-maintenance outage would help, and maybe it has, but I listed an item yesterday and followed all of the photo rules regarding size but when it uploaded I had the camera man "preparing pictures" on every single picture! I refreshed several times and not one picture showed up. I finally gave up. This morning it looks fine. So, hopefully the glitches are solved.

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 12, 2012 at 10:15am

Thank you for adding your comments, regarding this situation. Yes, I agree, these intermittent site issues--including difficulties and delays in uploading photos and generally adding new listings--seem to have started and still continue since the Cloud changeover at Christmas time. I am not so sure that RL is addressing these problems or is even aware of them. And besides, they seem to be more focused on the photo cropping and conformity of the site appearance than how the site itself is functioning right now. I hesitate to directly contact administration about this, because the last time I spoke up (it was about the Cloud upgrade), I was told that if I was unhappy selling on Ruby Lane, I could go elsewhere, followed by their statement that they have the best customer service anywhere. But I think if enough shops contacted RL about this current site issue, perhaps the powers that be would take them seriously. Sales, influx of visitors, and click rates are drastically dropping in number and, though the economy obviously is a major factor, I cannot believe that no one out there is at least interested in visiting and browsing RL shops and treating themselves to a purchase. Some other factor other than the economy is discouraging customers from frequenting Ruby Lane as they used to and I am worried it is the simple fact that the site is not always functioning properly or reliably, making it frustrating to browse and navigate the shops.

Permalink Reply by CheriShops - Admin on June 12, 2012 at 10:33am

I am shocked to hear of the response you got!

Although I was initially and consistently told the problems I was having in my shop owner functions following the migration to the Amazon Cloud servers was my computer/ISP etc etc etc....after months of me nagging!! and showing proof from my ISP that it was not a problem on my or their (Brighthouse/RoadRunner) end ...I finally was put in direct contact with a very helpful RL tech, who did a lot of troubleshooting with me via a remote laptop they sent me and he recently notified me that he actually had to rewrite some code to get my shop owner maintenance functions back up to speed, which they thankfully were....... till this recent bunch of glitches started again.

Where the economy is taking a substantial bite out of sales, I am not seeing my other venues flat lining like my RL shop has. Surprisingly though my RP traffic and sales remain ok....but that is almost like salt in my wounds as they are closing that.

TheVintageAdvantage said:

Thank you for adding your comments, regarding this situation. Yes, I agree, these intermittent site issues--including difficulties and delays in uploading photos and generally adding new listings--seem to have started and still continue since the Cloud changeover at Christmas time. I am not so sure that RL is addressing these problems or is even aware of them. And besides, they seem to be more focused on the photo cropping and conformity of the site appearance than how the site itself is functioning right now. I hesitate to directly contact administration about this, because the last time I spoke up (it was about the Cloud upgrade), I was told that if I was unhappy selling on Ruby Lane, I could go elsewhere, followed by their statement that they have the best customer service anywhere. But I think if enough shops contacted RL about this current site issue, perhaps the powers that be would take them seriously. Sales, influx of visitors, and click rates are drastically dropping in number and, though the economy obviously is a major factor, I cannot believe that no one out there is at least interested in visiting and browsing RL shops and treating themselves to a purchase.

Permalink Reply by Swanky Selections on June 12, 2012 at 10:44am

I'm so glad that I followed this link as I've been having exactly the same problems with click reports. I've been neglectful of late, in adding to my shop as I do shows in the and have just recently made a video on my vintage clothing. I was thinking maybe that is why I haven't made a sale in 3 weeks or so but I've been having doubts about that line of thinking as I've never had a drought like this. I've been considering leaving R.L. because now it's just costing me more money each month with no return.

The problem with all this is that my click displays have jumped by approx. 800-1000 times each and every day in the last 2-3 months while the click percentage for most days has been less and less. I used to get the "congratulations" message showing that my shop was consistently higher than the average across the site. Usually quite a bit higher percentage wise. It got so that I hardly bothered to check it out daily anymore. I want to stress this, as it's important when numbers of 1.20%, 1.4 1, 1.56, 1.31, 1.56 drop to .34 % .47 % .56% while click displays have jumped hugely! Now I do get the message that says I'm lower across the board quite often. The worst part of this is the average across the Ruby Lane shops has also dropped hugely, now that average shows often .37% , .46%. So while my clicks have dropped considerably so has the average for all shops. Somebody please explain this if you can as I'm at a loss to figure all this out and why it has drastically affected my sales. I should mention that when have added inventory thinking that this might be the problem, nothing much changes including sales.

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 12, 2012 at 10:44am

Thanks for your comments and so sorry to hear about your Ruby Plaza shop. Very unfortunate turn of events there. "Flatlining" is an excellent way to describe the current stats on Ruby Lane. I, too, sell on other venues and, though sales are not great on those either, visitors to and interest in my shop offerings are still very decent in number. If RL sellers are finding these intermittent glitches in how the site functions, one can only assume that RL customers are coming up against them, as well. I, like so many other RL sellers, count on my RL sales to help pay the bills. We have to count on RL to make sure the site is running well, so at least we have a fair chance at making some business.

CheriShops - Admin said:

I am shocked to hear of the response you got!

Although I was initially and consistently told the problems I was having in my shop owner functions following the migration to the Amazon Cloud servers was my computer/ISP etc etc etc....after months of me nagging!! and showing proof from my ISP that it was not a problem on my or their (Brighthouse/RoadRunner) end ...I finally was put in direct contact with a very helpful RL tech, who did a lot of troubleshooting with me via a remote laptop they sent me and he recently notified me that he actually had to rewrite some code to get my shop owner maintenance functions back up to speed, which they thankfully were....... till this recent bunch of glitches started again.

Where the economy is taking a substantial bite out of sales, I am not seeing my other venues flat lining like my RL shop has. Surprisingly though my RP traffic and sales remain ok....but that is almost like salt in my wounds as they are closing that.

TheVintageAdvantage said:

Thank you for adding your comments, regarding this situation. Yes, I agree, these intermittent site issues--including difficulties and delays in uploading photos and generally adding new listings--seem to have started and still continue since the Cloud changeover at Christmas time. I am not so sure that RL is addressing these problems or is even aware of them. And besides, they seem to be more focused on the photo cropping and conformity of the site appearance than how the site itself is functioning right now. I hesitate to directly contact administration about this, because the last time I spoke up (it was about the Cloud upgrade), I was told that if I was unhappy selling on Ruby Lane, I could go elsewhere, followed by their statement that they have the best customer service anywhere. But I think if enough shops contacted RL about this current site issue, perhaps the powers that be would take them seriously. Sales, influx of visitors, and click rates are drastically dropping in number and, though the economy obviously is a major factor, I cannot believe that no one out there is at least interested in visiting and browsing RL shops and treating themselves to a purchase.

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 12, 2012 at 10:59am

My experiences with the click rates and drop in sales have been exactly the same as yours. Besides the state of the economy (which, let's face it, has been a factor for a good few years now and sales have still been happening), the only explanation I can give is that something is going wrong with the functioning of the Ruby Lane site. When I first opened my shop on RL, I was advised to add new listings as frequently as possible to encourage more visitors and sales. This no longer works. I get sudden surges on my customer wish lists, but then nothing happens--no questions, no sales, no followups. I, too, am at a loss as to how to proceed.

Swanky Selections said:

I'm so glad that I followed this link as I've been having exactly the same problems with click reports. I've been neglectful of late, in adding to my shop as I do shows in the and have just recently made a video on my vintage clothing. I was thinking maybe that is why I haven't made a sale in 3 weeks or so but I've been having doubts about that line of thinking as I've never had a drought like this. I've been considering leaving R.L. because now it's just costing me more money each month with no return.

The problem with all this is that my click displays have jumped by approx. 800-1000 times each and every day in the last 2-3 months while the click percentage for most days has been less and less. I used to get the "congratulations" message showing that my shop was consistently higher than the average across the site. Usually quite a bit higher percentage wise. It got so that I hardly bothered to check it out daily anymore. I want to stress this, as it's important when numbers of 1.20%, 1.4 1, 1.56, 1.31, 1.56 drop to .34 % .47 % .56% while click displays have jumped hugely! Now I do get the message that says I'm lower across the board quite often. The worst part of this is the average across the Ruby Lane shops has also dropped hugely, now that average shows often .37% , .46%. So while my clicks have dropped considerably so has the average for all shops. Somebody please explain this if you can as I'm at a loss to figure all this out and why it has drastically affected my sales. I should mention that when have added inventory thinking that this might be the problem, nothing much changes including sales.

Permalink Reply by Flashback Alley on June 12, 2012 at 11:06am

Well, this is all quite disturbing to read, as I'm actually in the process of reopening a shop on RL. At the end of December, I pared down my Internet presence to just my independent site and RP as I was seeing fairly consistent sales on RP (none of them big dollars, but steady cash flow), but my RL shop had suffered tremendously in 2011, with sales barely over half what they had been in 2010 (which wasn't all that great compared to the year before that).

I now wander over here because I've received two consecutive error messages on RL, as I prepare to reopen -- first, "Oops, our servers are too busy right now serving other users! Please try again in about 10 seconds." and then, just a minute ago (before wandering over here), ""An internal server error occurred. Please try again later."

As for customer service telling shop owners "if [you are] unhappy selling on Ruby Lane, [you] could go elsewhere," followed by their statement that they "have the best customer service anywhere", this is now the third time I've heard this.

I can only shake my head....