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 c