Forum Moderators: buckworks
My question is, how long did you guys wait before seeing some real orders come though. Can you remember back to the first essential months of the operation?
I'm thinking it will be months at least before orders start to come through properly given that it's so niche, but is it normal to see essentially 3 ordres in the first 2 weeks?
I've made some changes to usability recently. i've gone from a forced "create an account" before adding products to the cart to a much more friendly "pick and checkout" type cart.. That change only went live earlier today so I'm not sure how much of a change it will make.
The site seems ok from my point of view. i'll try to get second opinions on it, but it has company name, phyiscal address, telephone, email on the bottom of each page which makes it seem like it's not a mickey mouse operation.
url is in profile should anyone dare to wander!
How long should I wait before deeming the venture a failure :P?
You have to determine what you can afford to invest in the site, the marketing of the site, and the execution of the business ... and compare that to the returns you get.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer on this kind of thing. Some businesses you might know within a month if you have a chance to succeed. Others ... several months. Several years, even.
My question is, how long did you guys wait before seeing some real orders come though. Can you remember back to the first essential months of the operation?
I should add this for a real-life example.
The very first commerce client we had went about 9 months with ZERO orders. This was back in early 98 when the site launched -- a little mom-n-pop business with no bricks-and-mortar shop or anything, just the site.
They were all set to throw in the towel when we suggested they try this new program Yahoo was offering where you could pay $99 to get your site reviewed within 7 business days and possibly included in their directory.
They gave it a go ... the site got accepted the first week of December '98 ... and they did $4500 in widget sales (average widget = $35) the rest of that month. And they're still online, going strong.
I've been working extremely hard on the site, and I've pumped a bit of money into advertising. Just today I arranged to advertise on a site with targetted traffic.. may work!
Is your suggestion to pay $99 to get my site added to the Yahoo directory? Admittedly, it's not something I've considered doing. Yes I know the option is there but I hadn't heard of it being a great ROI.
Not sure but I think it costs more now.
Plus there are many more sites there to compete with (than in '98)
[edited by: 1milehgh80210 at 2:44 am (utc) on Jan. 3, 2004]
(The sad ending)
Then I realized Google had indexed my IP address instead of my domain name. I did a 301, got dropped from the Google index, and lost all Google traffic. I'm now averaging about 3 sells per week through mostly Inktomi and Altavista.
Hopefully, I will get a deep crawl soon. Googlebot hasn't gone past my homepage since the redirect. We'll see.
There is no fixed answer to "How long to wait".
I have several sites less than 4 months old that generate $20K+ profit per month, I also have several hundred sites 2,3,4,5 years old that make zilch or very little, and numerous in between.
Several of my latest ventures showed all the promise in the world, but after a couple of months of good marketing they seem to have fallen flat on their faces!
It is incredibly difficult to judge what will be a winner from a loser.......my advice is keep trying, and lots of different things, you only need a few winners to make all the losers disappear out of your mind ;)
Like I say, I don't feel too bad that there's only been 3 sales after 2 weeks. The site was launched on the 17th, which was far too late for the christmas bang, and too close to christmas to expect sales. About 304 pages have been indexed in Google already, although they are not ranked so well and I don't expect them to be for at least another month or so...
I'm focusing the most now on tweaking my cart (which I have to say I'm very proud of). I'll try and make it as easy as possible to "Click 'n' Go".
Darrin
The answer that makes most sense is that your initial sales will likely be in direct parallel to your promotional effort thus far. Some sites seem to do particularly well serving a very niche market whereas other sites that cater to a more general market may have a bit more trouble getting off the ground as there are nearly countless competitors, though I believe there are still many ways to topple the "giants" of e-retailing.
Keep plugging away, if you look at any of the truly successful retail websites that have "made it" without being backed by a huge corporation or millions in marketing money, the one commonality appears to be the fact that they simply refuse to go away and just keep plugging away at both product selection and their customer service offering.
Good luck with your site!
Its a good thing that you now only require the customer to buy and go rather than registering and then paying.
I launched a site 3 years ago and it went without sales for about 4 months, then on the run up to Christmas it started to take orders. Now that site does about 3k every month and peaks at about 6 / 7k between the months of October - December.
Essex_Boy is right as you will see a dip in orders after Christmas, although that can be a little too general a statement to make. On all my sites selling giftware stuff I have seen a big dip in orders, but it will pick up again once everybody gets back into work. The other crucial thing about this time of year is that people has just spent thousands of $$$ in the last month or so, it will take time for them to get back into a spending mood.
Flat spells aren't too good for the bank account but it does give you a window of opportunity, use this quiet time to optimize your site. Add new products, write articles, fiddle with the design, get new links ... it'll all help in the long term.
I would suggest that you spend as much as you can on Google adwords for a few weeks to see how many orders you can get per visitor. If your conversion rate is low, then it could be something to do with your products, your pricing, your site design or a combination of the three.
Being in the Yahoo directory is no longer worth it for most small businesses. It just does not bring it much traffic nowadays.
Have you got a lot of links from appropriate directories like DMOZ, Joeant, Galaxy and GoGuides etc? They will work for you, maybe not a mass of traffic but steady visits over time.
I've already started doing some campaigns which are starting to pull in targetted traffic. Now let's hope they convert.
I'm trying to get a good sense of what is optimal in terms of where the pricing should be in relation to the product image, and where the "buy now" buttons should be. i'm also traing to get a sense of what is optimal for cart layout.
Perhaps a few of you e-commerce site owners that have researched this and "fiddled" with the layout to achieve optimum performance could sticky me a link. I know most people keep their secrets close to their chest, but I dare say my site is not in competition with anyone in here (it's too niche).
Thanks for the feedback!
Also you might add a small thumbnail image next to the product in the main categories like Amplifiers or Robot kits intead of having just a link.
I've had good luck with Adwords, my site's been active for 3 months and I've made 49 sales so far. My shopping cart is Paypal but I will be switching to a real shopping cart/merchant account system in a week. I've used Adwords, a little Overture, and I'm on some jewelry directories too. My search engine placement is not too great especially with Google juggling around right now. You're gonna have to pay for advertising if you want to get a lot of sales. I've spent over $800 with Adwords.
Both of thise ideas had crossed my mind, but your bringing them up is a good confirmation that they are worth doing.
Has your $800 investment in overture made an ROI. Or are you neglecting ROI at this point and going for sheer branding?
I'm off to do some strkeouts!
I wouldn't throw in the towel until you've tried 3-4 months of PPC marketing. Getting a ROI on some less expensive keyword phrases could be the answer.
Your home page could also be spruced up aesthetically. Adding images of your top sellers with buy links. Make your index page for 10 or so products you want to concentrate your PPC dollars on.
Going on to the graphics side of things, always use a professional template even if it means buying one yourself.
Your sales will increase.
When you say you're down 95%, do you speak statistically, or are you being exaggerative?
Secondly. when you say pay for the graphics, are you saying my site looks crap? Don't hold back my friend. I've worked hard on it, yet my preference leans towards text sites that are more indexable for search engines & friendly for users. Advice from a 3rd party is very welcome.
I'm using this time to switch CC merchants (going to WorldPay) and also source new products, so it's probably for the best that sales are down!
FM receivers from $10 to $10,000. shatter your neighbors windows for under $**** with our kits. Want a slave -- build a robot we will show you how.
I have not looked past your home page but maybe you get my point. Why you and not radio shack should be loud and clear on your home page.
Jeeess, just realized I better go rewrite my home page. ;-)
To answer your original question, I started online sale about xmas last year, just enough interest to make me work at it over the next 9 months. (some background my most basic keyword has about 3,000,000 sites) Double sales April to Sept. saw a 5 fold increase for Nov. Dec. One real site niche product. Main factor driving traffic, number of search terms that rank in the top 20. Main factor driving number of search terms, increased products and static pages of content related to why those products help solve customer problems.
Advice -focus your home page on a couple of selling phases and sales pitches to 3 or more other products. Use terms that seperate you from broadline retailers like kit, build assemble, build, ect.., Pick 3 to 5 key product phases develop 10 to 20 pages of content around those key phases. Take your best shot at electronic kits, it looks like it can be taken. to repeat my self stay away from terms like fm recievers with out modifiers, how many people typing in fm reciever are looking to build one? sorry if I am preaching to the choir. With people interest in kits remember "cheap and how to"
Develop a linking program around electronics
a lite adword campaign very targeted at your highest
margin products.
Put in 70 hours a week between now and august and if you are not selling 3 to 5k per month by August targeting 20k to 40K for Nov and Dec rethink everything.
Tried an order, actually considering your "Widget Relay Switch". But hit a brick wall - shipping cost. Do I have to enter my credit information to calculate shipping or can I just enter my ship address and click on get shipping charges.
Your "Investigate and Prosecute" warning as well as displaying my IP address would really put my Dad off from ordering from your site... real fraudsters know what they can get away with and probably don't heed such blatant warnings that will only scare away good customers.
If you think about it, the only people that can offer any facts would be a type of competitor in the niche/market your in.
