Sales Dropped Suddenly? Where to Look First

When online sales fall off a cliff, there is often one main cause, and you can often find it in an afternoon. Don't slash prices, double the ad budget or redesign the website yet. Work through the checks below in order, quickest first, and let your own numbers point to the problem.

Most owners do the opposite. Sales drop on Tuesday, panic sets in by Thursday, and by the weekend the prices, the adverts and the Instagram bio have all changed. Now there are four new variables and nobody knows which one mattered. Stay calm and go step by step.

Is the drop real, or just a quiet week?

Compare like with like before you do anything else. Put this week next to the same week last month, and this month next to the same month last year if you have it. A Monday after month-end will never look like the Friday before it.

Write down three things: when the drop started (the exact day if you can), how big it is, and whether it was sudden or gradual. A sudden drop on a specific day usually means something broke or changed. A slow slide over weeks usually means demand, competition or tired adverts.

Is it everywhere, or just one channel?

Split your sales by where they came from: website, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, walk-in, phone calls, Jumia or other marketplaces. This one check rules out a lot of suspects.

• One channel fell, the rest are fine: the problem lives inside that channel. A broken checkout, a paused advert or a WhatsApp number in trouble.
• Everything fell together: look at demand, price, stock, reputation or the calendar. Something changed for your buyers, not just one door into the business.

If you don't record where each order came from, start today. Even a column in a notebook ("IG", "WA", "web") will save you next time.

Did something change in your adverts?

If paid ads bring in most of your buyers, check them first, because ads can stop overnight without any warning email you'll notice. Open Ads Manager and look at spend by day. If spend dropped on the same day as sales, you've found your direction.

Common causes: the card or payment method was declined, an advert was rejected, the ad account was restricted, someone edited a campaign that was working, or the same tired advert has been shown to the same people for weeks. We cover each one, with fixes, in why your ads stopped working suddenly.

Is the website or checkout broken?

Place a real order yourself, on your phone, on mobile data, and pay with MoMo. This takes ten minutes and often catches problems no report will show.

Watch for:

• Pages that take ages to load. Many Ghanaian buyers are on phones and mobile data. A slow page loses them before they see the product. See why website speed matters on Ghanaian mobile data.
• MoMo payments that fail or hang. Check your payment provider's dashboard for failed or abandoned transactions, and try each network if you can: MTN, Telecel and AirtelTigo.
• No confirmation. Did you receive the order email or SMS? Did the customer?
• Expired domain, hosting or security certificate. Browsers warn visitors away from a site that shows "not secure".
• A broken button after an update. Plugins, themes and app updates break checkouts more often than people think.

If your test order fails, you've probably found the cause. Fix it before you touch anything else.

Did your stock or prices change?

Check what you changed in the last few weeks. Look at your top five products specifically, because a best-seller going out of stock can sink the whole month.

• A best-seller or popular sizes sold out, while adverts kept sending people to it.
• A price rise, or a higher delivery fee, that made the total feel too high.
• Exchange rate pressure. Importers feel this first. Bank of Ghana data shows the cedi at about 10.45 to the US dollar at the end of December 2025 and about 11.55 by mid-September 2026. If your supplier raised prices and you passed it on, your buyers noticed.

A price change isn't wrong. But if sales fell the week prices rose, that's your answer, and the fix might be a smaller pack, a bundle or a better reason to pay more rather than a cut.

Is a competitor or marketplace undercutting you?

Search for your own product the way a buyer would: on Instagram, TikTok, Google and Jumia. Look for a new seller with a lower price, a big marketplace sale, or a competitor running heavy adverts to your audience.

Then ask buyers directly. Message ten people who enquired recently and didn't buy: "Did you find what you needed? We're trying to improve." The answers are often blunt and very useful.

Is it the calendar?

Ghanaian spending follows strong patterns, so check the date before you blame yourself. Many buyers spend around payday at the end of the month and hold back in the middle. The weeks around school reopening pull money towards fees, uniforms and books. December is busy, and January is often quiet.

The Bank of Ghana's mobile money data shows how big these swings can be. MoMo transactions were worth GH₵ 420.1 billion in November 2025, GH₵ 518.4 billion in December and GH₵ 446.2 billion in January 2026. If your drop lines up with a seasonal dip, plan around it next year. Our ideas for the slow months help.

Did something happen to your reputation?

Check your Google reviews, Instagram comments, Facebook page and any mention of your business on X or TikTok. One angry video or a run of one-star reviews can stop new buyers before they ever message you.

If you find one, reply publicly, calmly and quickly, then fix the problem behind it. Our guide to Google reviews in Ghana covers how to respond and how to collect more good reviews.

Are deliveries going wrong?

Late or failed deliveries hurt sales twice: the order is lost, and the customer tells others. Ask your riders or delivery partner about the last two weeks. Count failed pay-on-delivery drops, late orders and complaints. A new rider, a new delivery company or a road problem on a key route can be enough.

Have your WhatsApp replies slowed down?

For many Ghanaian businesses, the sale happens in the chat. If replies went from five minutes to five hours, sales usually follow. Ask what changed: a staff member left, the owner was travelling, the phone was lost, or the number was restricted.

Read twenty chats from last week next to twenty from a good week. Look at how fast the first reply came and where chats went quiet. If the number itself is in trouble, see what to do if your WhatsApp Business number is banned.

Also think about outages outside your control. On 26 September 2026 the National Communications Authority reported fibre cuts that disrupted voice and data in the five northern regions and parts of Oti. ECG power cuts can keep you offline too. If your sales dip matches an outage, it isn't a marketing problem.

How do you read your own numbers to find the cause?

Online sales come from three numbers multiplied together: visitors, conversion rate and average order value. Find which one moved, and you know where to look.

Sales = visitors × conversion rate × average order value

Here's a made-up example. A shop usually gets 2,000 visitors a week, converts 2% and averages GH₵ 300 an order: 40 orders and GH₵ 12,000. This week it took GH₵ 6,000. Visitors are still 2,000 and average order is still GH₵ 300, but conversion fell to 1%. So the adverts are fine. The problem is on the page or at payment, and the test order is the next step.

Where do the numbers come from? Ads Manager for spend and clicks, Google Analytics or your store dashboard for visitors and conversion, and your order list for orders and average order. If you only sell on WhatsApp, count chats started and orders closed each day. Our guide to the e-commerce numbers to track shows how to work each one out.

A one-hour checklist

Run these eleven checks in this order, and stop to fix the first real problem you find.

1. Compare this week with the same week last month. Note the day it started.
2. Split sales by channel. One channel or everywhere?
3. Check ad spend by day. Did it drop on the same day?
4. Place a test order on your phone, on mobile data, paying with MoMo.
5. Check stock and price changes on your top five products.
6. Search for your product as a buyer would. Any new competitor?
7. Check the calendar. Payday, school fees, holidays?
8. Read new reviews and comments.
9. Ask your riders about failed and late deliveries.
10. Read twenty recent WhatsApp chats. How fast were the replies?
11. Work out visitors, conversion rate and average order for this week and a good week.

What would MediaWura do?

On a free strategy call, we'd go through this list with you and your numbers, and often point to the likely cause on the call. Then we'd fix it in the right order: tracking so you can see what's happening, adverts if they're the leak, the website or checkout if that's where buyers drop off, and WhatsApp if the sale is dying in the chat.

Common questions

How long should I wait before I worry about a sales drop?

A few slow days can be noise. If sales are clearly down for a full week against the same week last month, and it isn't a known quiet period, start the checklist.

Should I cut prices to get sales back?

Not until you know the cause. If the checkout is broken or the adverts stopped, a discount just gives away margin on the few orders still coming in.

Should I increase my ad budget?

Only if the adverts are working and simply not reaching enough people. If conversion fell, more traffic sends more people into the same problem.

What if every check comes back fine?

Look at slower trends: a competitor taking share, adverts that have run too long, or a product people have stopped wanting. Talking to ten recent customers often reveals it.

Can one bad review really affect sales?

Yes, especially for newer businesses with few reviews. A single visible complaint can put off new buyers. Reply quickly and publicly, and fix the problem.

If your sales have dropped and you want a second pair of eyes, book a free strategy call. Bring your numbers, and we'll help you find the cause and fix it in the right order. You can also message us on WhatsApp.