Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

My site, www.bedspreads-quilts-comforters.com, has only been up for a couple of months and isn`t up high on the search engines yet (24th on Yahoo and not in sight on Google) but I do get visitors.  What I am concerned about is that the ratio of visitors to sales is much too low.  It could be that the product is wrong for the internet but I maybe I could also improve my site to improve sales.  Thanks for any advice.  I am really looking forward to this.

Jus Ol Al
www.bedspreads-quilts-comforters.com

you need to make you URL a link.

 

aaron

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Aaron Burnett Owner of We Work You Play

Errand Service
Errand Service Blog

Background is distracting.

Content seems all smashed in ... needs some kind of spacing to make it less overwhelming.

A lot of the copywriting talks about you instead of me. I want to know that you have ... I don`t know ... good return policies, fast shipping, quality products, good customer service, something. This is not a good opening:
We take great pleasure in presenting  our selection of what we feel are many of the highest quality Bedspreads, Coverlets, Quilts and Comforters available.
See copywriting for more information.

Get rid of the background.  It blends into the text making it hard to read.

Also, get rid of the all caps headings - it screams amateur.  Bold and bigger font will do better. (Use the H1, H2 or H3 heading tag)

Your guarantee is too one-sided - I wouldn`t buy for that reason alone.  I also won`t buy anything unseen with a restocking fee.  This says, `it will cost more than you will receive in refunds to send it back, so tough patooties.`

Some of the grammar needs work and your copy rambles.

These two sentences are very confusing (in addition to poor grammar):
They should not be underlined because that looks like a link and personally I feel that these two lines are confusing and condescending.  The logic of what they say baffles me.  Are you saying that small orders aren`t worth your time?  Do you *really* incur additional costs for small orders?  And how in the world does a minimum order change your cost basis - "to maintain competitive pricing"?  I don`t mean to pry into your business, but none of this is customer friendly, and I am sure I wouldn`t be treated this poorly on other sites. 

The more I look at your site, the less I like it.  On one page you say that you don`t ship out of the US, and on the orders page you say to inquire about shipping outside the US.  When I try to place an order, THE PRICE CHANGES!!!  $30.95 becomes $59.95 ???   $60.95 became $219.95 ???

On top of that, your shipping prices are high for Priority Mail and they seem to be arbitrary without regard to shipping weight or distance.

If I were shopping for quilts, I would be gone from this site so fast.

You also have at least one broken link.  "Continue Shopping" returns a 404 error (page not found).



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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

Seems to me the problem is no unique selling proposition. (I didn`t know there was this formal name for it until I got to reading SuN posts.) :-)

This is like any other site that sells bed stuff. I`m a guy, so "quilts" doesn`t mean much to me. It`s a bedspread...y`know? But I do get the idea that quilts are hard to make. Anyways, this is like going to Bed Bath & Beyond, or Linens & Things, or Penney`s.

Fine. So there`s quilts. So?

I think it may be why you`re getting casual browsers but not so many conversions to purchasing customers. Yes, the products look pretty. But I suspect too, that many people see them, get an idea, then wonder if they can`t find the same thing locally...or they`ll do some comparison shopping.

What can you do that makes you different? Why did you put this site together? What passion of yours came into play, that you might be able to use to start to differentiate yourself?

The site itself looks nice, works fine, and so forth. But I think this isn`t about the technical aspects (although there are some great points above). It`s about creating an emotional appeal in your visitors.

JusOlAl,
Perhaps I went too deep in criticizing your site, but in me you have the perspective of someone who *is* currently shopping for furnishings, including quilts.  (We recently moved from California to New England). 

I was intrigued by the variety of the selection, but the technical flaws on the site and the one-sided guarantees and policies (not customer friendly by any means) told me loud and clear to shop elsewhere.

Steve


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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email