jonsteward Posted July 26, 2003 Posted July 26, 2003 Hi I have just made my first OSCommerce site and have been live for a couple of months now but I have not had any sales yet. I have got a budget of pretty much 0 so I realise I am not going to have massive amounts of sales but I was at least expecting one or two a month to begin with. What are the best ways of getting potential buyers to my site. I have tried asking a quite few web sites whether they would provide a link to our site in return for a link back to theirs but I have had zero offers and one person considering. Is something wrong with our site which is putting off potential buyers or is it that i'm just not getting the correct people visit the site as I notice from my web stats alot of people who have visited our site have come from these forums. Is there a way of letting users purchase without having to register as I feel this could put some potential customers off. Any ideas as to why i'm having these problems please let me know http://www.nrgreen.com Thanx Jon Steward
Hunkah Posted July 26, 2003 Posted July 26, 2003 1. Colors suck 2. Camera store = graphics and pictures! Where are yours? 3. Cameras are in the "high-end" feild and that means that you need something a little more to sell the product. They cost a lot of money, and you need to jump down their throat and grab their interest and MAKE them want to buy. Your store needs some major modification. You need to make it look like a fun, colorful place. Right now it looks empty and boxy. Is that enough or would you like more? (I was being nice)
imlek Posted July 28, 2003 Posted July 28, 2003 Working hard.... Working hard.... Working hard..... Submit to search engines, request links (thousand times to try and maybe only get less than 100 links), etc...... It is not a magic word but that the true.. When I start my painting store, www.baliartworld.com, it took more than 6 months to have my first money. :) If you have a lot money to spend, you can advertise your store, if not then working hard, working hard, working hard, and working harddddd........
Guest Posted July 28, 2003 Posted July 28, 2003 http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30744 HTH The_Bear
Guest Posted July 28, 2003 Posted July 28, 2003 Yeah I will have to agree the colors need some work. All the cameras have a gold tone to them, which they may have normally, but that alone gives it a old western tone, if that makes sense. :)
Guest Posted August 2, 2003 Posted August 2, 2003 How many visitors are you getting? You can expect - all other things being equal - one order per 300 to 500 visitors for $20 -$40 items. These other things being equal include: your site looks trustworthy & credible you have a unique selling point ie. you offer stuff others don't, or if you do at lower prices than others, or you deliver by topless dancer etc.
halbert Posted August 4, 2003 Posted August 4, 2003 From just a quick look, I'd recommend the following: - add product pictures to go along with your sub-heading picture links. For example, put an example pic of a compact binocular in the "compact binoculars" pic link. - add in more text for your memory cards, batteries, etc. People will want to know what cameras they work in and so forth. - add in more text and pictures for the used items. The current one-line description isn't enough. You might want to put in the comparison price to the retail price, and definitely some information about the condition, age, and warranty (if you offer any sort of warranty on the used items). - use some HTML formatting for your camera descriptions. I came across a 2-3 page description for the Minolta Dimage 200 but it's hard to read as there are no headings or other visual cues to what information is being given. - on your Links page, perhaps have them in a table of alternating colors. I couldn't tell that the description behind the link was the description. And have the link open in its own page rather than taking people away from your site Good luck! I'm about to put my site live soon and will also be looking for feedback. I'm cringing as I know there are a few things I should change but just don't have the energy or desire to... -al
toolcrazy Posted August 8, 2003 Posted August 8, 2003 My first impression is: It doesn't jump out and grab ya. I kinda lies there and makes you think it is dying. You need some color and flash, not a stock osc site. It needs to make you think it is a professional site that wants to have fun taking pictures. And wants the buyer to have fun taking pictures. Add some pazzazz, and some content to keep the buyer on the site. Steve -------------------------
Guest Posted August 13, 2003 Posted August 13, 2003 1) Make camera bundles! Thats a very good way to attract camera buyers. Include free cases, memory sticks, stuff like that. 2) Your prices are not the best around... 3) Make your customers feel at home. For example, you expect the customer to ship their defective/unwanted product back to you with their money. People dont like that.
♥monte22 Posted August 15, 2003 Posted August 15, 2003 You need to make your site fun and interesting. This will keep people on your site longer, which leads to a higher chance of them making sales. Adding a lot of pictures is one way to do this. You need to get people excited about what you are selling. No offense, but your site isn't much to look at. You have a good basis, all you need to add now is some pizazz.
Guest Posted August 15, 2003 Posted August 15, 2003 Well, doing a Google search for "Cameras and Optics" your shop did not come up in the first 150 responses at which point I quit. I am not sure how a potential customer would find your store unless they were to type in the exact URL. If you can swing a $50 a month budget for doing something simple like Google Ad-Words you might do a world of good. Being in the UK, you could try focusing more on searches dedicated to your part of the world. Getting involved on various bulletin boards dedicated to photography might help. Don't spam the board, but you can make friends who will eventually try buying from you and, if treated well, will help you out.
Jeremy at oddly enough Posted August 26, 2003 Posted August 26, 2003 It definitely helps to 'network', get your name out there, try and get added to bulletin boards and association sites and the like. We put a site up using a $5.00 program I got from radioshack just to get something up, and we sent out a short note to our existing customers via email, and we updated our listing on a couple of bbs. We had an order within a day or two. We always make a point of finding out how people heard about the site. I read a recent study that said most visitors find a site via links from other sites in a four to one ratio over coming from a search engine, and I'd have to say it holds close to true for us. Even for the ones from search engines, we show up in some due to our link on someone else's site! You might have a look at the book Big Red Fez, by Seth Godin. It won't tell you exactly what to do on your site, but it does give you a lot to think about! Jeremy
jonsteward Posted August 26, 2003 Author Posted August 26, 2003 Thanks for your advice everybody obviously it is quite a list of things to do but I am trying to apply alot of the ideas suggested. I have updated images for quite a lot of products hopefully you should find them a lot nicer now. I am going to start posting on a few bulletin boards etc to get our name around a bit. I have also started a Google Adwords campaign which is bringing quite a few people to our site but no purchases as of yet :( Thanks again everybody and keep the comments coming
New 
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.