Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello! I recently launched my retail website. And through Google Adwords, I
steadily receive 150+ clicks a day but not one sale. My niche is trully
authentic branded designer handbags, clothing and accessories. I
researched my market for over a year and realize the potential but I need
some ideas for target marketing. And yes, I also spent about 2 months on
SUN reading each and every one of your ideas and suggestions about this
subject. My site is trueimportsinc.com I have optimized what I can with
keywords, URLs etc, but not 1 sale. At this point, should I be looking into an
optimization service? Thank you all in advance!

I apologize for not getting back to since our last telephone conversation. I`ve been kinda busy getting ready to head to Afghanistan.

Anyhow, the last trime we spoke we agreed that the niche that you have chosen has tough competition from the "knock-off arena". Knock-offs and replicas are a dime a dozen.

I read your About US page ... but I, as a consumer, still have doubts as to the "authenticity" of your products. Your "About Us" page link is at the bottom of the page. I have to scroll to get to it. Your "Authenticity Guarantee" is a simple text link. You may want to consider creating a "button" featuring your Authenticity Guarantee !! Thats your BIG selling point. Shout it from the rafters ... just as GoTruckStop.com features "Free Shipping".

When you check your stats .... what are the "Depth of Session" numbers? Also, what is the avg. page views per session?

I don`t think you have an advertising problem .... you have a shopping/buying problem !!

Where`s you store window, or front cover? I went to your site, clicked on products, handbags, and left pretty fast....because I never saw any actual product, nor an indication of how many, what range/styles, etc., or saw something that didn`t click (you picture of D&G sunglasses...where are the sunglasses?)..."True Imports" from where, and how do YOU manage to be a "true importer" vs. others? (Need more on your story, your business, your company). I`d also recommend some separators (i.e. lines/boxes) to help users focus in on navigation vs. news vs. product.  Also, right on your front page, you invite users to leave (novica, gift box)....don`t you want them to stay, to see your product, buy your stuff?  And only leave if they`re actively looking for something else? Additionally, I don`t quite understand the "legal stuff" - if you`re not authorized dealers or representatives....what are you exactly? You disclaim all warranties, but perhaps you could put some language in saying that you "make every effort....", "place customer service in highest regard....", have testimonials (just get your sister to buy something and provide a testimonial)...

Hi Tru,

 I viewed your website and yikes! Is all I can say wow that is a lot of white…. Where to begin I think TJG said it best you have a buying problem.

 

When someone wants to purchase an item from the web there are a few things taken for granted. Things like pictures of product easy search, easy find and easy pay… perhaps you will remember the whole one click purchase patent lawsuit involving Amazon a few years ago.

 

I suggest you spend time on Amazon website to get a feel for what internet consumers are used to. Then model your website off Amazon’s. I think you spend far too much precious space on words, odd gold man graphics that are boring to the person they want to buy yet you make it so difficult.

 

Rule number one internet consumers get’s bored easy don’t make them work or else your bottom line will suffer don’t fool yourself and say well my product is so good my customers are willing to trade off inconvenient… not when you can just click the back button and go to one of a thousand other places that sell the same product.

 

The reason a consumer comes to your website is to buy not to read the same page over and over again. I suggest a complete web page redesign burn the current one.

 

I suggest you hire a professional web designer who has built retail sites before and use Amazon as a model. Show pictures on the home page with the name of the item below it instead of the cold scary left hand menu bar you have now.  

 

The money shot is the product not cold landscapes of white on white…

 

Once you get your website fixed you will see people will start buying, and then you can determine if your marketing strategy is working for you in terms of traffic.

 

All the best,

 Eric

Hi Tru,

Are you sending the adwords clicks to your homepage, or are you using landing pages? 

Also, and I`m not saying this because we design ecommercs sites, you really need a better layout and cart flow.  When I click on sunglasses, I want to see sunglasses.  Instead, I have to click on another link.  Once I am on the page with the listings, I still don`t them, because they are "below the fold".

Feel free to email me at steve (at) freshyields (dot) com if you have any more questions.



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Steve James Fresh Yields- a new media firm, providing ecommerce solutions, redesign consulting, web design, email campaign management, and internet marketing.

I believe my main pet peeve here is the lack of trust your site is transmitting!
But I think that following what everyone else mentioned to you will help eliminating this lack of trust.

You need a professionaly designed website. It must be easy to use and straight to the point.

Branding the authenticity of your products must be your main goal, because that`s what is going to differentiate you and all the knock-offs around.

Good luck...you have lots of work ahead of you and it must be exciting!


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Andre Costa DaCosta Chocolates, LLC www.DaCostaChocolates.com

Checkout engineseeker.com They will get your website on over 100 search engines world wide for a fixed fee and guarantee top 10 listings continuosly for one year for about $400 a year. Google Adwords can be more expensive and not yield a sale.

 

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Hernando E. Arauco, CEO Electronic Packaging Specialists Corporation P.O. Box 13895 Torrance, CA 90505, USA (800) 495-0665

Even though you are getting many clicks, it sounds like its the quality of the folks visiting may not be up to par...

There`s a great article in Entrepreneur magazine this month (September 2006) talking about how to beef up your link partners.  They suggest looking at your competitiors to see what companies link up to them.  This will give you good ideas of sites that you may want to approach to add you as a link. 

Here`s how you do it:

Go to a search engine - (yahoo, google, etc) - in the search field type "link:" and a competitiors URL.  For example using your URL, link:www.trueimportsinc.com.  Also try adding a space between the colon and the first w.  I found I needed to do this for some sites to get the right results.

Even if you`re not sure if traffic quality is your real problem or not, this is probably a useful exercise anyway.  I did this and I found it interesting to see who linked to competing sites, things that were said about competitors, etc.  It should give you some ideas of sites to approach and improve the quality of your traffic.

Hope this helps!  Good luck!

 

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Becky Boyd
Alexandria, VA
rebeccalboyd@hotmail.com

yes,

agreed  with everybody that you really need to reconsider your website design. think about it, you mentioned that you sell Gucci Prada... branded stuff, do you think user are convince that your product is "authentic" with your website look like that?

please, i think you almost there. just a polished site be perfect

Have you thought about a "Monica" Line of Handbags.

Not that it is out of the consumer mind now a days.

 

Let me know.

TR

Design Ideas Marketing Associates

www.designideas.tv