How do i sell these products

[jskenya]

Hello there i have just finished my store www.buyafricanmusic.com

 

Its a shop selling african mp3 downloads and african merchandise.Like african clothes ,wood curvings ,jeweller and stuff.

 

I have made special offers and i would like to know how to get started.

 

How do i get my first few customers and where do i look for them.

Thanks,

John

[Mediajuggle]

I also run a niche music download store so I face some of the same trials and tributlations that you do... but lets start with

 

Your Store

1. While you have replaced most of the stock images on your site, you still have the "stock" round corner gif in your "Categories" and "New Products" header

2. You need to install a thumbnail contribution as your images look "squished"

3. Some of your product images are scaled to proportion as on page:

http://www.buyafricanmusic.com/themall/pro...?products_id=34

4. I never understood the purpose of leaving the "click to enlarge" link visible if the "enlarged" images are the exact same size as the one on the product page.

5. there are loose corner images hanging around like on this page:

http://www.buyafricanmusic.com/themall/pro...&products_id=38

6. Also, the "Manufacturer Info" infobox text overlaps the image

7. When I click on the account link this error pops up:

Safari can't verify the idenity of the website "www.buyafricamusic.com"

 

 

The certificate for this website was signed by an unknown certifying authority. You might be connecting to a website that is pretending to be “www.buyafricanmusic.com” which could put your confidential information at risk. Would you like to connect to the website anyway?

 

8. Get rid of the "OsCommerce" that appears in your brower's title bar and replace it with your stores name.

9. Add your Shipping & Returns, Privacy Notice, and Conditions of Use Policies

 

10. And the site seems slow too me

 

I would first correct all of this before even attempting to go live as you only get once chance to make a first impression.

 

 

Promotion

 

1. Because your store is a niche market store you'll like to get more press on it than a general store. Create a press release (both digital and on paper) and send it out to any site and/or blog that deals with digital music. There are quite a few, I'd do a search on Google. You can check my post here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=153412

for ideas on where to begin submitting your press releases to. You should also read this post as well:

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showforum=40

 

Send press releases to papers that cater to an african audience. Heck not only an african audience but a "black" audience in general as you're likley to find it easier to gain press. Send them to hip hop publications like The SOurce and XXL, as well as magazines like Essence and Smooth to black oriented and black musilum newspapers.

 

2. You need to optimize your site for the search engines. Some people go crazy with this but I've done just enough to my site so that I come up pretty high on specific keywords without having to pay for Adwords. I'd really begin with the SEO Meta-Tags contribution

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri...all/search,meta

this automatically creates the "TITLE, KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION" tags and it really works as doing searches for many of the artists on my site will cause my link to show up on the first two pages of results.

 

3. You'll also want to download and install the Froogle contribution:

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri.../search,froogle

to get your items listed

 

4. Form partnerships. I know a lot of people won't put banners for other sites on theirs sites because the objective is to keep people at your site, but for my business model it works. I've partnered with sites of latin interest that provide me with a ton of traffic and they're not selling or offering music downloads. For the exposure and traffic that I'm getting from my partner sites, putting up a banner is a small thing.

 

5. We've printed out business card sized promotional cards that resemble itunes download cards. We give them out in bodegas, clubs, and any other places where our potential clientele conjugate.

 

There's a lot more things you can do.. but since i'm at work and supposed to be WORKING... i can't go into it all... but i hope this provides you with at least a starting point...

 

also, you should make you site available in as many "african dialects" that fit your market and use keywords throughout your site in these dialects. I get a lot of hits from versions of Google, Yahoo, and MSN running in coutries like Peru, Mexico, and Spain because of the spanish version of my site.