Why Does My Ecommerce Website Not Sell???

[Peter (IMC)]

Sometimes I wonder why people think that a catalog of products online is the magical solution to richness. Yet, there are tons of sites out there that are nothing more than a list of products,.. catalogs basically.

So when the sales don't come, the SEO starts,.. Pages get optimized but the increase of traffic isn't as expected. So link building follows... and traffic goes up a bit more. But what about sales?

Often the increase in traffic doesn't result in a equal amount of sales. So the next step gets implemented,.. A new, more professional, design. That helps, now many visitors at least don't get scared away by what they´re looking at. But sales still doesn't go up that much.

Then you would expect people to take the next step,... which is: Selling! But funny enough, that´s the last thing people want to do.

An ecommerce website needs to sell its products. You can present products in the most beautiful and creative ways, but if you don't do anything to actually sell them, it´s all in vain.

But what does that mean, selling products?

This is the difficult part for most people. Often without even realizing it, people have the "my product sells it self" syndrome. People love their products so much they think everybody else does too and therefore want to buy the products no matter what. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

What do people often do? They state all the advantages of the products in the website. Why it is such a great product, etc. But that´s just trying to help the products selling them selves.

Products don't sell them selves! You need to sell them!

But how do you sell your products? There are many ways but I prefer the focus on understanding the buyer's need (and showing this) and giving a solution. After that the convincing starts which can be done in various ways and actually each way should be present on the website because different types of people require different types of convincing. It also depends on the products of course.

Some people are convinced by testimonials (text / images depending on the product). Others want to be convined by lots of information. Another group simply wants to make sure they´re not doing something stupid while others want to be respected.

In the end, what matters is that you actually try to sell your products in the website.

[SteveIrw]

There is a good book about selling online "Why They Don't Buy: The Science of Selling Online". Of course, you need to read more books and articles if you want to start success online business. Online business is almost the same as offline buiness - it requires hard and smart work to achieve success.

[Paul B]

From my experience of building ecommerce sites for others, there are some fundamental rules that apply to selling online:

The site must clearly offer a unique selling point (USP) for the products and push this hard. It could be a price advantage, speedier delivery, exclusive availablilty etc.

But beware of a product range is exclusive, it could well not sell online, simply because potential customers don't know it and need to handle/smell/taste the items before buying. Books, CDs DVDs are a 'known-quantity' and other than paper/recording quality, a book is a book and CD is a CD.

But if you are selling say, exclusive aftershave online, however wonderful it may be if potential buyers can't try it first, they won't buy an unknown aftershave. Just because your products sell well in a brick & mortar environment, it doesn't automatcally mean that they will be a success online.

[jestep]

I recommend reading articles from Bryan Eisenberg on this subject. He focuses his writing on marketing to persona's or groups which helps target specific visitors. By then targeting the persona's that are most likely to purchase from you, you don't add useless information and clutter to your website, and at the same time, you can increase the purchases on your site.

You can find his articles at clickz.com

[wmrobwl]

There could be a million reasons why. The only way to diagnose what it could be is to post the web site so we can take a look at it and tell you some specifics.

[bbcarter]

I agree with much that has been said. Great original post.

What I often see as an adwords consultant with prospective clients is that they

* don't understand USP
* don't know what online business metrics are (e.g. CR, rev/impresssion, etc.)
* don't know what any business metrics are (e.g. ROAS, ROI)
* don't know where their stats are
* aren't tracking their conversions

...and of course the stuff that's been said about people not having chosen a product that will sell.

Lemme tell you, it's not easy to do AdWords for a site that doesn't have a conversion rate of 1% or more. Or has major shopping cart problems...

People also tend to

* choose shopping carts without knowing what a good one is (e.g. xcart's checkout process bites, even the mods for it aren't great, and modifying xcart is a huge learning curve)

Without market research ahead of time, you can't select the right niche, products, or know how to sell the product. Not that the research tells you the best selling concept for each product... but you can at least see how other people are doing it.

[esmtech]

I had the exact same problem...going from this to that to whatever, with no sales...I seem to be getting the traffic with google adwords but not 1 sale so as the author stated I had to result to selling...faxes, calls, letters to get buyers to actually buy my service...so I use the internet as my brick and mortar store sort to speak...I started getting sales from the traditional offline methods...I don't think that all sites were meant to use the great internet marketing techniques...the best thing in my opinion is to use your site just as you would any other store...get your buyers there...educated them...gain their trust and they will buy.

[kanjigirl]

Time is another factor my clients don't seem to understand. Many think 'oh, I'll put up my brand new online store on my brand new website and people will flock to it!'

Not so.

I have a retail website as a well as a web development business... my retail site went up in 1998, made no sales for six months, then started doing a little here and there. It's now been around for 8 years and is really a great income source for me. But 8 years is a looonnng time in Internet time.

[tayads]

Hi Guys,

Came across this page on my travels and thought that a few people could benefit from getting the low down on writing effective marketing tactics and may help answer the original post. And it's free!!!

BTW I have no affiliations with this site at all so this not a 'post for profit'.

http://www.thereluctantsalespersonsc..._teleclass.htm

The teleclass is being run by Anne Duncan with Maggie Dennison being the expert.

For those that are lacking in effective copy writing this may just be what you have been looking for.

Happy Marketing,

Gordon.

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by kanjigirl

Time is another factor my clients don't seem to understand. Many think 'oh, I'll put up my brand new online store on my brand new website and people will flock to it!'

Not so.

I have a retail website as a well as a web development business... my retail site went up in 1998, made no sales for six months, then started doing a little here and there. It's now been around for 8 years and is really a great income source for me. But 8 years is a looonnng time in Internet time.

What a great post. 8 years is 8 years no matter where the time occurs though.

I have ranted this to people for years...clients online for the most part are under some hypnotic spell, that they will be successful in a year or so.

NOT TRUE!!!

Why if it takes an offline business 5 years usually to start to turn a profit does anyone online think their time to profitability to be 400% shorter of a period???

Assumption is another killer...When the client doesn't see the result in the time frame they want...they then assume you know nothing, and they know everything.

I tell them after having done it for xxx others I am damn sure I know...they on the otherhand have never accomplished it....have fun.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by wmrobwl

There could be a million reasons why. The only way to diagnose what it could be is to post the web site so we can take a look at it and tell you some specifics.

:)

No original website I´m afraid, I just wanted to discuss this subject as it is something I have to explain to many clients.

[SemAdvance]

1. There are 100 sites in any given category.

2. Online drives offline.

3. Online the higher the price... the lower the amount of sales.

4. A few sucesses has borne a zillion misguided people.

5. The Internet was built to exchange information. Who said it was supposed to be a place to sell anything?

[ozzie_jim]

I've also come to the conclusion that there's 2 types of clients. Those that are price shopping and those that are information shopping. Very few go out and buy a "widget" these days just because you have a good sales page. They tend to research it and then price shop.

Our biggest competition doesn't even bother describing the $800+ coffee machines, they just list the same model $50 cheaper than us and pay for the traffic. Welcome to the online world of "who can squeeze the best price from the manufacturer".

[nottheusual1]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

5. The Internet was built to exchange information. Who said it was supposed to be a place to sell anything?

That is the essence of sales - information - whether to overcome an objection or hi-light a benefit.

There seems to be a brain-freeze when people think about business on the Internet. Marketing is still marketing - a bunch of the "101" stuff still applies, but with minor variations on execution. You still need to be grounded in business fundamentals - business is business.

We, too, have struggled with the customer who is emotionally decimated that after 90 days on the Web they aren't retiring to the Bahamas. Or the guy that blows his entire marketing nest egg on Google or Yahoo in the first month they are open and have little to show for it - and have nooooo clue why, even though you advised against it - they had to be #1 at $6.50 a click. Poor planning.

Imagine the guffaws you'd get if you had a brick-and-mortar strategy with the same limitations. It may just be that the WWW has made it **too easy** to get started, and waaaaaay too many people aren't equipped for business success? Our successful customers are the ones with a real-world business grounding that see the Web as a way to **augment** existing sales.

Retail still sucks, though. The few relentless schmucks who drove you nuts in the store now have PC's and have more time to write almost-Emails in all caps. And hotgranny69me@<whatever>.com wants to know where her order is for her grandchildren. hotgranny69me??? Do the grandkids write to her at that address?? Geez, do her own kids??

Does anybody else think that the people who originally got the free Email addresses have realized just how silly those addresses are today? Another topic...

[wmrobwl]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

No original website I´m afraid, I just wanted to discuss this subject as it is something I have to explain to many clients.

OK in that case, generally speaking you must:
1. Make sure that the products you sell are in demand
2. Have pictures
3. Have compelling descriptions that make you HAVE TO HAVE IT NO MATTER WHAT!
4. Be visible where it counts and be inline with your competitors pricing. e.g. if you are selling widgets for $150 and the people ranked above and below you are selling them for $100 you dont stand a chance.
5. Have a call to action. "Call 555-1212" Now or "Order online now", etc.

I'm probably missing some other stuff, but if you go that far then conversions should be at least 1-2%

[SemAdvance]

nottheusual1 excactly the point.

Sitting down and opening an online business requires not one iota of business accumen. 75% of webmasters I have worked with have no idea what profit margin is....

That is where setting expectations comes into play..if I cannot get them to a point where I am sure they will be around for the long haul..I don't bother.

As for webmasters losing their fortunes on Google or Yahoo, it is just like any other gambler going to Harrahs or Trumps...odds are severely stacked against you.

Click fraud??? LOL that is the funniest thing ever...

Google and Yahoo and every other PPC search engine enjoys "click waste revenues".

Waste of this scale, would make most Wall Street analysts choke and feel sick... if they knew the amount people are throwing in Googles coffers for clicks on ads that are displayed during "irrelevant" searches.

I would venture to guess click waste would outweigh click fraud 10 to 1.

In other words for every dollar in click fraud Google earns revenue.... they earn $10.00 in click waste, and that sadly may be an underestimate.

I think eventually you will see online emulate offline life...large scale chains will serve people for somethings and more localizied businesses will move online to ease the shopping experience and offer the one thing big boxes usually lack...'personalized customer service'

What will happen is the middle tier "I think I have a new concept" (but dont) will fade away or simply be unable to compete.

I don't know about you but I still pick up the phone and order pizza.

Sadly the really good pizza place I like is 10 miles away and delivery would be inane at that distance and having UPS drop one off is as inane if not more....

And yes I could order online...that won't make my pizza cooking time or delivery time any less, than if I called ahead.

[/yahoo]

[timmathews.com]

Ok, for arguement sake, take http://www.blanketmall.com for an example website.

The sales have been down for some time, and I was actually thinking of posting something here to see if the wpw crew could give me some advise on increasing sales for them.
I have not worked with the site owners for a while, and when I last worked with them, I got the site operating well. Now, a year+ has passed since any work has been done aside from new products added...

All comments respectfully requested.
Thanks guys & gals...
Tim

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by timmathews.com

Ok, for arguement sake, take http://www.blanketmall.com for an example website.

The website loads pretty slow on dial up, that might be an issue. Also how many sales should you expect in the sports blanket niche per month? Maybe they are already peaking?

[incrediblehelp]

Good post Peter. I am working with a client right now on shopping cart abandonment issues. We are getting peak traffic to the website through PPC and organic, but sales are not optimal. Why? Well after going through the shopping process as a customer I saw many ways to improve the cart process alone. I wrote a detailed dissertation on how to do this and we are working through it. Of course this is just one small part of the sales process that can be improved for online shoppers.

Just implementing "Closed Loop Marketing" concepts can help make your website more successful.

As I posted above about the blanket websites. Do you know as a website owner that you are already not a peak sales? How do you know this? From your own past experiences or your competitors?

[Peter (IMC)]

As for webmasters losing their fortunes on Google or Yahoo, it is just like any other gambler going to Harrahs or Trumps...odds are severely stacked against you.

PPC isn't any magical system either. You need to optimize, monitor, adjust continuously. Nothing goes by it self.

As to click-fraud, it exists, but its peanuts. Every customer I helped with PPC (mostly adwords) makes money out of it once they get their campaigns and landing pages right.

Ok, for arguement sake, take http://www.blanketmall.com for an example website.

The sales have been down for some time, and I was actually thinking of posting something here to see if the wpw crew could give me some advise on increasing sales for them.

Well,.. it could use some optimization. The redirect on the domain for example isn't helping much. And why do pages have to be in a folder /scripts/ ? But further there is not enough information to go on. You say sales went down. Did traffic also go down or did you conversion rate drop? I guess the best thing to do is open a new thread and provide as much information as possible.

Good post Peter. I am working with a client right now on shopping cart abandonment issues.

Cart abandonment can be a real pain in in the .... Keeping the check-out process as simple as possible can be very helpful. Also what can help is showing it is a secure site using a small banner that the payment gateway should have available.

[timmathews.com]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

The website loads pretty slow on dial up, that might be an issue. Also how many sales should you expect in the sports blanket niche per month? Maybe they are already peaking?

Thanks Jaan,
The fact that it loads slow bothers me. I am on Cable here, and see it load slowly as well.

On another note, there are more than just sports blankets there. There are Nascar Blankets, Harley Davidson Blankets, Spongebob blankets, etc. There is more to the site than just "sports blankets".

[SportsFan]

My conversion rate and profit margins are good, and when my website gets media exposure sales are through the roof. Unfortunately, I don’t get media attention every month and when I don’t, it seems like nobody knows my website exists.

How do you market a unique product? People don’t know my product exists, so they don’t search for it.

[timmathews.com]

Thanks Peter, Please see:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=304720

[Peter (IMC)]

How do you market a unique product? People don’t know my product exists, so they don’t search for it.

Is your product a solution to a problem? Focus on the problem and show you have the solution. Perhaps it is something else, but it´s always something for something.

A good step forward would be to understand your audience, then you will also know why they would buy and you can focus on those factors in your marketing efforts.

If you have a product that absolutely nobody is waiting for, then your niche may be so small that the only person interested is you. That´s not really a niche, that´s a hobby,... :)

[SportsFan]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

If you have a product that absolutely nobody is waiting for, then your niche may be so small that the only person interested is you. That´s not really a niche, that´s a hobby,... :)

Perhaps I am too close to the situation to be objective. As you said above, “People love their products so much they think everybody else does too”. This certainly describes me.

My product is holiday and sport team schedules. My niche market is anyone who uses Microsoft Outlook. I would say that my product is a solution to a problem. I love sports, and always wanted my team schedule on my calendar. For three years in a row I searched the web looking for a place to download a schedule. I could never find one, so I started the business in 2001.

I don’t think it is such a small niche that I am the only one interested in it. I have been featured in PC Magazine and on Tech TV, and in some other media forms. I have also had some business partnership proposals from some large companies such as Microsoft, Palm Pilot, an NBA team, a MLB team, the BBC, etc. The media exposure brings in excellent results. But after the flood dies down it is back to normal.

The problem, as I see it, is that people don’t know that my product exists, so they don’t come looking for it. To be honest, I don’t think there is a solution to this problem, except staying in business long enough for enough customers to “stumble on” to my website.



...

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by SportsFan

My product is holiday and sport team schedules. My niche market is anyone who uses Microsoft Outlook. I would say that my product is a solution to a problem. I love sports, and always wanted my team schedule on my calendar. For three years in a row I searched the web looking for a place to download a schedule. I could never find one, so I started the business in 2001.

Huh, cool idea! I suggest starting another thread and maybe the members can have at it and see how you can market your website better. I must admit it is a pretty cool idea and I would have never even known about it until I read this post and I have searched on keywords like "x team schedules" on SE's MANY times over.

[rwil02]

Originally Posted by SportsFan

My product is holiday and sport team schedules. My niche market is anyone who uses Microsoft Outlook. I would say that my product is a solution to a problem. I love sports, and always wanted my team schedule on my calendar. For three years in a row I searched the web looking for a place to download a schedule. I could never find one, so I started the business in 2001.

Your niche market is sports fans who also use Outlook.

The intersection of the two criteria you mention.

[wmrobwl]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

The website loads pretty slow on dial up, that might be an issue. Also how many sales should you expect in the sports blanket niche per month? Maybe they are already peaking?

Incrediblehelp, I agree with you 100%. It also loads slow on T1. Until all the pages on the site were cached, it was unbearable to use the site. If I was an potential customer I would have immediately clicked off and dismissed the site. Just picture your frame of mind when you're surfing.

Fix that and you'll see conversions improve. I also agree with incrediblehelp about the size of the market. To be honest I never in my life would have thought to search for a novelty type of blanket. If your total market size is lets say in the single millions, then you would need to have a stranglehold of a market share to make any kind of money.

[preciouschild]

timmathews.com and http://www.blanketmall.com

I never make an online purchase without knowing right off what the shipping will cost and what the return policy is. The site needs some customer service information that is easy to find.

[bathgems]

The thing about commerce is that money is made in buying, not selling. Buy the right merchandise at the right price and everything else will follow. Too many sites try to be category killers through drop shipping and selling backordered merchandise.

Dropshippers are unreliable and charge a premium for their services. Buying goods in quantity, on the other hand, gives you a competitive price that can overcome some SEO flaws. When I launched our site in April 2005, we got immediate sales through PPC.

I also work eBay although the price competition forces lower margins.

So the web, in my view, is only 1/2 of the equation for a successful online ecommerce strategy. The other 1/2 is sourcing goods as close to the manufacturer as possible.

Steve

[southplatte]

Originally Posted by kanjigirl

Time is another factor my clients don't seem to understand. Many think 'oh, I'll put up my brand new online store on my brand new website and people will flock to it!'

Not so.

I have a retail website as a well as a web development business... my retail site went up in 1998, made no sales for six months, then started doing a little here and there. It's now been around for 8 years and is really a great income source for me. But 8 years is a looonnng time in Internet time.

You know, I took a job and closed my small design shop I ran for almost 4 years in a small poduck rural town. Why? The small businesses thought the following:

1) I have unique products at good prices.
2) I want a web site under $400
3) I want to be #1 in google for each of my products
4) I will make $1 million after 6-12 months

I was forced to tell them the following:

1) Your products are unique in a town of 12,000, but not on the Internet, and when competing in a global market, charging $49.95 for a plastic dragon statue that costs $12-$15 at the wholesale web site that ranks higher than your web site does not get you sales.
2) I can't make a full ecommerce site with marketing, promotion and proper SEO for $400
3) You will never be #1 for all your products and stay #1, unless you only sell one product that absolutely no one else sells in the entire world that is in high demand and low supply.
4) You will not make $1 million, you may not even be able to quit your day job in 6-12 months. It depends upon how well you promote your web site, both online and offline, and I will not do SEO as an included "value added" service, not for what it entails.

Of course, when they heard that, they went down the street to the guy popping up osCommerce store fronts left and right for a couple hundred dollars so they could get their over-priced, not so unique items on the web in a few weeks, and still not get any sales.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by SportsFan

Perhaps I am too close to the situation to be objective. As you said above, “People love their products so much they think everybody else does too”. This certainly describes me.

My product is holiday and sport team schedules. My niche market is anyone who uses Microsoft Outlook. I would say that my product is a solution to a problem. I love sports, and always wanted my team schedule on my calendar. For three years in a row I searched the web looking for a place to download a schedule. I could never find one, so I started the business in 2001.

I don’t think it is such a small niche that I am the only one interested in it. I have been featured in PC Magazine and on Tech TV, and in some other media forms. I have also had some business partnership proposals from some large companies such as Microsoft, Palm Pilot, an NBA team, a MLB team, the BBC, etc. The media exposure brings in excellent results. But after the flood dies down it is back to normal.

The problem, as I see it, is that people don’t know that my product exists, so they don’t come looking for it. To be honest, I don’t think there is a solution to this problem, except staying in business long enough for enough customers to “stumble on” to my website....

You say your niche market is anyone that uses outlook. That´s not correct. That´s like a custom car builder saying that his niche is anyone with a drivers licence. You need to be way more specific.

Who use your product?

* People that like to be reminded of all kinds of events.
* People that are into sports


I did some keyword research in overture:

2799 birthday reminder
742 reminder service
653 appointment reminder
485 calendar reminder
159 e mail reminder
141 calendar program reminder
139 calendar reminder software
986 event schedule

Also, I read your website but I couldn't figure out how your product or service works. What do I actually get? How does it work? I have to admin that I am not much into electronic calendars, I prefer a calendar on the wall,. :) So my experience with electronic calendar is pretty much 0. Could be that´s why I didn't really figure it out. But if others have a similar issue with it, you may want to be more informative in your website.

But get to researching your audience. The keywords above may be of help.

[bathgems]

Originally Posted by southplatte

1) Your products are unique in a town of 12,000, but not on the Internet, and when competing in a global market, charging $49.95 for a plastic dragon statue that costs $12-$15 at the wholesale web site that ranks higher than your web site does not get you sales.

Great point. You need to get as close to the source as possible to be effective on the internet. If possible, become the source.

2) I can't make a full ecommerce site with marketing, promotion and proper SEO for $400

I disagree. My site is created and hosted at CityMax.com for $16 per month and includes feeds to eBay, Froogle, Shopzilla, a site map, and static product pages. It has Paypal and other payment processing built in. I simply add my images and sales copy and it automatically formats everything. It is as dummy proof and cheap as I could find.

3) You will never be #1 for all your products and stay #1, unless you only sell one product that absolutely no one else sells in the entire world that is in high demand and low supply.
4) You will not make $1 million, you may not even be able to quit your day job in 6-12 months. It depends upon how well you promote your web site, both online and offline, and I will not do SEO as an included "value added" service, not for what it entails.

I believe that promotion must be offline for a large proportion of my sales. Online PPC and SEO will only take you so far and then you must think like a real business. Contractors do not troll the internet SERP's like consumers do for new products. So I advertise in a contractor magazine. I am now working on a catalog to send out to retail stores and small contractors so they can add these to their presentations to their customers.

Also, selling $40 items with a $17 gross profit is not always the definition of success. You have to sell and ship out hundreds per month to make an income and it gets very tedious. I started my business doing just that with the curved shower rods. I finally figured out that selling a vanity for $600 is much better use of my time and resources than making a bunch of $40 sales.

You need to imagine what success looks like to decide if it is really what you are looking for. Some businesses, unfortunately, dont even get to the point of achieving what they set out to do to in sales to figure out that it is not what they want.

[brian.mark]

Don't forget the rule about listening to the customer. If you get 10 calls per day and 9 are asking how much shipping will be, add a link to shipping charges from every page. Look at your most asked questions and proactively answer them through your website. That's the only way that your site will ever get better.

Following this philosophy and spreading our eggs out into other baskets has been one of the keys to our making the list with ToolBarn. Ignoring customers won't work. Listening is the only way to go.

[southplatte]

Originally Posted by bathgems

Yes, and on Citymax.com they offer custom design services starting at $249.
http://www.citymax.com/host/page/1122.htm

5 page site, up to 10 of your own photos (minus the catalog photos) and so on according to the page. Or used their builder and make your own, which I had one client use something similar - they went from a clean, valid xhtml and css based web site, that was accessible to a non-valid template based site that has since cost them more in visibility, sales and maintenance time than I ever charged them (I charged them $180 for the site of 12 pages - 5 of which were php scripted to allow content updates/changes, a year of hosting, training in person on how to use their web site maintenance control panel, digital camera training on taking effective photos for the site, and 6-months of maintenance/warranty if the site had technical issues. they complained that was too much and went to a place charging $19/month but they can change templates/colors at a whim and have no consistency on their web site.)

What I am trying to say is a professional design that is organic, original, validated, accessible and client maintainable that is not based on an open-source solution or part of 100 templates chooseable from the hosting company that thousands of others use cannot be had for under $400 design/seo cost unless one designs it for themselves.

[bathgems]

I guess that is the difference. I did it myself without hiring outside services.

Steve

[SportsFan]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Huh, cool idea! I suggest starting another thread and maybe the members can have at it and see how you can market your website better.

incrediblehelp - thanks for the feedback. I will do that.

[SportsFan]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

You say your niche market is anyone that uses outlook. That´s not correct. That´s like a custom car builder saying that his niche is anyone with a drivers licence. You need to be way more specific.

You are correct! Not all people who use Microsoft Outlook would be interested in my products and services.

I offer such a wide variety of products that it is hard to actually narrow down my potential market. Some of the categories that I support are: major sporting events, holidays, moon phases, eclipse schedules, and even Sunrise/Sunset times. Some items like the Sunrise/Sunset times and sports play-off events are provided free to get people familiar with my company.

Some people will want NASCAR and nothing else. Others could care less about any sport but want holidays or moon phases on their calendar. A Venn diagram representing my market would include a large percentage of people who use Outlook, and it is easy (for me) to say that includes everybody, but I know it certainly does not.

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Also, I read your website but I couldn't figure out how your product or service works. What do I actually get? How does it work? I have to admin that I am not much into electronic calendars, I prefer a calendar on the wall,. :) So my experience with electronic calendar is pretty much 0. Could be that´s why I didn't really figure it out. But if others have a similar issue with it, you may want to be more informative in your website.

Thank you for this feedback. After almost 5 years of working this business, I know I take a lot for granted. I have tried to step back and pretend to be a new visitor to my own website, but that is impossible to do.

I know that I need to improve my site so that I can get this information out. I could do this with a lot of text, but would my customers sit and read it all? Probably not. Can I convey my message in pictures? It would probably take more talent than I possess.

This kind of brings me back to my original problem: Having a new product that is not well know. It may not be too difficult to explain to customers what a blanket or coffee maker is and does, but I have the challenge of somehow doing this with my product in order to survive.

I think incrediblehelp is right. I should start my own thread on this. Thanks for all of the advice.




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[vijoha]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Sometimes I wonder why people think that a catalog of products online is the magical solution to richness.

I agree. Most people actually start with setting up shop (Monetizing) when they should have started with creating a location (Content) for the shop to be set up in later.

People forget that most people visit the web not to shop, but to seek out information. To succeed in ecommerce then, you have to create a source of information (Content) on a particular subject to attract targeted visitors (Traffic). Only when they trust you as an expert (Preselling) they will buy what you recommend (Monetizing).

This is a well known prinsiple called CTPM.

I would also like to recommend a very good e-book on this subject called Make Your Site Sell.

[Peter (IMC)]

SportsFan,

You keep getting back to the negative which you think is the fact that your product is unknown and nobody is searching for it.

You need to focus on the positive, which is that you still have a lot to learn about your audience. Who are the people that would be interested in your products. What are they searching for? Your toughest job is to show your product to those that could be interested. Get these people to your website. They are out there, you just need to find out what they search for. The reminder keywords I showed you, could be 1 group... but I am sure there are more.

[nipplecharms1]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Just implementing "Closed Loop Marketing" concepts can help make your website more successful.

Dear Incredible... please be more specific. What do you mean by "Closed loop marketing?"

Michael

[incrediblehelp]

Newsletter, timely email reminders about specials, email follow ups, coupons, surveys, tracking, etc. It is really a catch all term that applies to customer loyalty or bringing the customer back to your website to BUY MORE!

Research it and learn!

[nipplecharms1]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Newsletter, timely email reminders about specials, email follow ups, coupons, surveys, tracking, etc. It is really a catch all term that applies to customer loyalty or bringing the customer back to your website to BUY MORE!

Research it and learn!

Customer Loyality... :) Make them happy, make them come back! :)

Thanks!

M

[steveglobal]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Newsletter, timely email reminders about specials, email follow ups, coupons, surveys, tracking, etc. It is really a catch all term that applies to customer loyalty or bringing the customer back to your website to BUY MORE!

Anyone giving advice about not relying on SERPs to market a business should immediately follow up with the above suggestions. Ultimately, SERPs are just one form of an overall marketing scheme that should encompass a wide variety of methods, including these.

However, what advice would you give for marketing products to one-time buyers? In other words, what if half of your customer base will not return, since the item they are buying usually does not encourage multiple or repeated purchases, due to the nature of the product? How do you reach out to customers that have never heard of you and, once they have, will not give you their business again because they don't need more than one of what you are selling?

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by steveglobal

However, what advice would you give for marketing products to one-time buyers? In other words, what if half of your customer base will not return, since the item they are buying usually does not encourage multiple or repeated purchases, due to the nature of the product? How do you reach out to customers that have never heard of you and, once they have, will not give you their business again because they don't need more than one of what you are selling?

Do you have tangent or related products to this one-time purchase product?

If not I would assume just following up to see how happy the shopper is with the one-time purchase would help encourage them to "spread the word" about how great you products are there by encouraging sales by word of mouth.