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View Full Version : ADVICE PLEASE, No Customers



teresasbargains
11-06-2003, 01:29 AM
Hi,
I have an online bargain gift store. I have had my store open for about 2 months. I am averaging about 25 visitors a day, but NO sales.
I have submitted to search engines, and I'm working on link exchanges.
I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE ANY ADVICE on why you think I might not be selling anything and any useful ideas you might have to turn things around!
I would really like to be able to make my website profitable. Right now, I am loosing money on hosting fees alone.

Thanks to all who reply!!!

Teresa

www.shoppalstores.com/bargains

Elite Skills
11-06-2003, 03:13 AM
It's not rare to have 25 people and no purchases. only 1/100 click a banner ad. I'm sure the odds for someone to actually willing to open their wallet is much less. Read through the promotional strategies on how to get more visitors.

Jurgen
11-09-2003, 02:59 AM
Teresa,

You are in a VERY combatitive area with your gift shop. It sure takes time to get visitors to your site. And your "buying" ratio is sky high.
What you need is visitors, quality visitors, targeted visitors. This very much involves page setups so you can be found in the search engins. You need to work on that. Get listed in all the major SE. Work on your link pages. Those are just a few tips you should look further into.
It took our site a good 6 months to have a decent visitor flow to our site.

Jurgen
www.absolutelyfabulousflowers.com

SteveAZ
11-09-2003, 06:57 AM
Teresa,
The items you carry are very popular. There is ALOT of competition out there for these same products. I have heard from a couple different sources that 1/50 people to visit a site do quality browsing. out of these about 1/100 might buy something. Basically thats 1/5000 people become sales. What you should do is do some searches for the products you list and see what the other sites are doing for promotion and charging for the items. To get sales you need to get quality traffic to the site. a good way is to build a good link exchange. It can be free or you can choose a company like www.linksmanager.com to do it for you. I use them and have built up close to 500 links to my site and this was done 1 link at a time. not with some mass link program. each link has gotten me several hits each month. as a plus, links help search engine placement as well.

ReadyCompanies
11-09-2003, 02:25 PM
i would suggest to treat http://www.shoppalstores.com/bargains/
as an Ebay or Online store
- mainly for generating leads,
however if you are able to get some direct sales - it would be good.

your strategy is very good, but i suggest for the long term it will be better for you to have your very own dedicated domain name to build your own internet business, however you should still the maintain the current site.

i also have an online store BUT i use the online store (provided by a popular auction website) to get the interested customers to click to my own website.

egtrix designs
11-10-2003, 12:17 AM
Hello,
I read your message and I visited your website too. You have a nice design but I think you should give some trust to your customers, how is that? well, the trust I mean is the eye trust.. your site has a lot of unused white space, try filling them with products, offers and so on. People like crowded yet organized sites. Also for the home page of the site, I suggest using thumbnails instead of large images, and try not to use animated GIfs. This will make the site looks more professional and by turn will have more trust from visitors.
Thanks