Forum Moderators: buckworks
We launched our [specifics removed] e-commerce venture around 7 weeks ago and, although we've seen a positive increase week-by-week, conversion rates are still relatively low; generally 1% for Adwords sourced traffic (that said, we can go through a whole day without converting from Adwords traffic), 3-4% for natural traffic. We're operating at around 20% of what we need to be in order to make things sustainable in the long term.
I've worked as an e-commerce developer since leaving university and keep on top of the latest online marketing trends; for example, aside from the web site itself (that we're very confident in), we have Twitter & Facebook accounts, all of our products are uploaded to Google Base on a weekly basis, discount codes are always uploaded with the voucher/discount sites, and so on.
It would be extremely beneficial to gauge the response from those as passionate as I as e-commerce and online marketing.
To provide a very quick rundown of aspects that we've focused on since launch:
- For orders over £25.00, delivery is free. From launch, we have experimented with using a £45.00 price point for free delivery, to offering such for all orders. The free delivery wasn't sustainable, and the £45.00 value was deemed too high. We feel that the £25.00 value sits just right, and conversions and average order values have risen since the change from the free delivery to the £25.00 price point.
- The price of every product was checked against our competitors and relevant changes made. We are, on the whole, extremely competitive - I would estimate that 60% of our prices are cheaper than elsewhere.
- We are happy that the site is clean, easy to navigate, and, most of all, easy to checkout.
- We offer quick dispatch and a free, no quibble return policy - on the whole, we believe we are offering the right products, at the right prices, via the right medium, and with the right customer service aspects to reinforce purchases.
Organic traffic from Google doubled from our first month of trading to our second, and I am still waiting to fully implement SEO techniques to boost this.
I am aware that spreading the word and instilling trust in people will take time - however, I am open to suggestions from you all. If you could take a quick peak at the site and offer your opinions, I will be eternally grateful.
Thank you for your time,
Rs55.
[edited by: buckworks at 9:04 pm (utc) on May 2, 2009]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]
First thing, read the TOS of Webmaster World:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Specifically, #13, 20, 21 and 25
A mod will edit your post soon, I'm sure.
We don't ever mention our own sites, niches or industries in most cases.
We all sell "widgets".
That said, you seem to have covered your bases and have a good business plan. Without a mass expenditure of advertising money to drastically increase traffic, the thing to do it just keeping working, testing, analyzing, tweaking, growing and learning.
The Thread tacked to the top of this forum (eCommerce) is a great place to learn.
[webmasterworld.com...]
And of course, the other sections of WW have a wealth of knowledge as well.
Welcome to Webmaster World.
Obviously the product information has to be accurate and complete, but a clinically accurate description is not enough on its own. The copy needs to engage your users and get them envisioning how they could enjoy and benefit from the product in their own situations.
Be sure your copywriters understand the difference between "describing the features" and "describing the benefits". Adding the right bit of zing to your product descriptions might make the difference you need.
Just want you to start out on the right foot here...
First thing, read the TOS of Webmaster World:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Specifically, #13, 20, 21 and 25
A mod will edit your post soon, I'm sure.We don't ever mention our own sites, niches or industries in most cases.
We all sell "widgets".
My apologies - clearly jumping in head first isn't always the right policy to adopt. Thank you for the heads up.
I've read the terms of service as advised and will ensure that future contributions will fall in line with them.
That said, you seem to have covered your bases and have a good business plan. Without a mass expenditure of advertising money to drastically increase traffic, the thing to do it just keeping working, testing, analyzing, tweaking, growing and learning.
That's the thing - there's no extensive marketing budget that we can utilise to induce visits dramatically. We're currently trying to run promotions in conjunction with popular magazines within our industry, but that's always a slow process. There are also offline marketing efforts that we are now beginning to concentrate on.
From my point of view, I'd say the site is around 5% complete. We've still got product cross-sells to add for each product, alternative, in-situ images (the original policy was for all products to be pictured against a white background, but there are times when this doesn't market the product as it should), and a whole host of other smaller things to implement; 'spend £x.xx further to quality for free delivery' statements, reviews, small icons for each product page (e.g. 'new', 'best seller', 'recommended by', 'winner of'), and so on. It's really a case of continual improvement.
Thank you for your input.
Something to look at is the effectiveness of your sales copy.
Obviously the product information has to be accurate and complete, but a clinically accurate description is not enough on its own. The copy needs to engage your users and get them envisioning how they could enjoy and benefit from the product in their own situations.Be sure your copywriters understand the difference between "describing the features" and "describing the benefits". Adding the right bit of zing to your product descriptions might make the difference you need.
That's a very valuable comment too.
Leading up to launch, our small team had so many things to focus on; 900+ product descriptions being just one of those. We had a similar comment from an individual from within our industry; she claimed that descriptions were a little 'dull' and 'uninspiring', which I am inclined to agree on.
I'll certainly be looking at addressing this in the near future - perhaps tweaking 50 or so and then gauging the results to such would be the first step.
Thank you both for your help - I'll be sure to stick around.
Every new one that starts up is going to take some traffic/sales from other ones.
There is only a certain amount of stuff people want or can or will buy on line. We cannot all be on-line retailers aiming to make a good profit while sitting at home.
I mean the number of on-line lingerie retailers is just ridiclous.
The number of people setting up blogs hoping to make a living or a "passive income" from Google Adsense is just ridiclous.
I am one of these, but I have my own product which is truly unique in the world - no one else makes them.
To my mind there are far too many on-line retailers hoping to make a buck (pound)
Every new one that starts up is going to take some traffic/sales from other ones.There is only a certain amount of stuff people want or can or will buy on line. We cannot all be on-line retailers aiming to make a good profit while sitting at home.
I mean the number of on-line lingerie retailers is just ridiclous.
The number of people setting up blogs hoping to make a living or a "passive income" from Google Adsense is just ridiclous.
I am one of these, but I have my own product which is truly unique in the world - no one else makes them.
I think that's a very generalised comment, Digmen.
In this instance, the business had been in development for over a year prior to my involvement. During that time, extensive market research was carried out and it was deemed that the proposition was viable. Of course, there will always be markets that are saturated with online retailers. This, however, isn't one of them (yet).
Nor, for the record, are we all sat at home - it's a very real venture based on a large commercial premises, backed by serious investment.
I have three niches that our main site started getting traffic for without trying. Once I noticed it in analytics, we added more product and content for those niches and our conversion rate on those products is close to 50%...and we now rank page 1 in Google for those terms. Wasn't in the plan but we saw it and exploited it.
