Ask HN: My company is dying, what can I do to save it?

1 points by throwaway142536 ↗ HN
I work at a small online retailer in a sports apparel niche. For years we were quite successful, but over the last few years things have taken a turn, and the owners have decided to sell or liquidate the company.

I'm the sole programmer and my job ends in a few weeks, except as needed for emergencies on an hourly basis.

The main reasons for the decline are:

- Our organic traffic from Google suddenly declined by 1/3 two years ago. Where we once ranked in the top spots, now you'll find Amazon, REI and other large retailers. We have no idea why this happened.

- Customer acquisition costs have increased. Where AdWords ads were once a great source, now the CPA on many keywords are no longer profitable or barely profitable.

- Our shipping expenses have increased due to consumer expectations for free shipping. Because of our size we can't really negotiate low rates.

- The company built a large office/warehouse, with an eye towards expanding or renting out the extra space, at the height of the real estate market. Needless to say we didn't expand and have never been able to rent it out. The mortgage is a large expense.

So, HN, how can we turn things around?

2 comments

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This story got caught in a spam filter. Sorry, but those are necessarily more aggressive with brand new accounts.

We marked your account legit so it won't happen again, and unkilled this story. But you are welcome to repost it, since obviously it didn't get any exposure while dead.

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