New Site No Sales [Archive] - UK Business Forums

dovroc

3rd July 2009, 02:19

AndyP

3rd July 2009, 05:42

Hi

Just my opinion of course. The site is as dull as ditchwater. Homepage does nothing to inspire me to browse, it looks like it was designed by an accountant (not offence to accountants) - it has no pzazz... Then there are at least three clicks to get to a product that you can actually buy. The product descriptions are lacking and do nothing to sell the product, its basically just a bit of blurb about dimensions etc.....nothing is saying to me "buy me because....". The product imagery is OK, but thats about it...it isn't great but its OK. Product template needs a redesign, the call to action looks like an after thought.

About Us...well actually its a bit about the brand....nothing whatsoever about you. So how exactly will that give a potential customer any confidence about you at all? "You" were not founded in Copenhahgen in 1945.... you are a man/woman with an 0161 telephone number who I do not know and under his "contact us" page gives an info@ email address and nothing else...no address, no nothing....so why on earth should I trust this man to not run off with my money?

Oh yes, delivery....if I buy it today I want it tomorrow....but wait...not only are you going to charge me way over the top to send my purchase (if you send it at all of course from your shed or garage somewhere in the 0161 telephone area) you are going to wait 2 days before you send it and then it will be 3-4 more days before I get it....thats maybe a week....hell, I think I will go to Debenhams on Saturday!...

Starting to get the picture?

Redesign, redesign, redesign, be transparent, tell people who you are and why they should buy from you, sharpen up your act and ship more quickly for less.

Frankly I'm surprised that you have had the one sale that you have had!

You can turn it around tho....just needs some focussed work at your end.

Good luck!

Place of design

3rd July 2009, 08:40

Hi

I launched my site bgluggage.co.uk around half a year ago and much effort has been put in to marketing and SEO.
I have had an adwords campaign running, but the cost was high and no hits turned in to sales, so that's currently paused.

So far I have only made one sale (of course my couriers delayed delivery and the order was subsequently canceled :redface:).

Would you say there is anything about the site which is putting people off buying, or can you think of any improvements i need to consider?.

Many Thanks!!!

here is the formula you need to tattoo on your hand:

visitors x conversion x average ordervalue = turnover

you qualify that - conversion may also be effected if you are attracting the wrong visitors to your site. Example if you had a adwords campaign mentioning "free sexy something" you would have 1000's irrelevant visitors

So assuming you get visitors, you need to look at conversion
For a retail store the average conversion is 1-3%

Clearly your conversion is lower than this, meaning you need to work on your site

The site just doesnt look sharp enough, and the photography of the products ranges from OK to poor. It needs to be 100% bang on every time. The presentation of the products is poor too - you need to get the pricing in the right places always, allong with the opportunity to add to the cart

I cant comment on the pricing (not my filed of expertize)

Nowadays consumers will notice subtle things like no borders arround the images, messy design and other non-professional traits this will effect your conversion. It might also be that people are not buying this product onlune, because they prefer a more tactile sale. it may be that witht he collapse in travel, you are also unlucky

Tidying up the site is a easy enough job (and will not cost too much)
Getting the photography done right will cost you
Addressing the other issues is a different consideration

fisicx

3rd July 2009, 09:39

Can't see where the SEO effort has gone - page titles are very weak as are the headers (all one of them) and lack of indexable content.

Tried to add a product to my basket and got taken off site with no apparent way back to the shop.

The link 'click here for more images' only opens up a new window with a slightly larger picture. Where are the pictures of the interior? Where is the image of a someone with the suitecase to give an idea of size?

Can't see your address anywhere - you are very anonymous which means a lask of trust.

As already suggested the site isn't inspiring and the long delivery times mean I'll go somewhere that's a bit quicker.

Julia at-u

3rd July 2009, 09:53

All valid points raised - in addition, I did a search on luggage, laptop cases etc and you were nowhere to be found........ search for Bon Gout and nothing still, I have to put Bon Gout Luggage for you to come up. What if I just want luggage... its up to you to convince me of the brand when I get there.... but I'm not even getting there....

Shipra

3rd July 2009, 09:54

IMO, you must redesign your website from navigation point of view and get SEO done to obtain higher rankings on google.You will definitely get good business :)

los_design

3rd July 2009, 10:20

Had a quick shifty on your site and your story is very similar to one I had a couple of weeks back for a client

The site was earning nowt and the traffic was nearly zero and I shall tell you what I told him...(you can view the details on my site if you wish, the top one on my testimonials)

Your site design and development does not match your market place.

I can go into a whole host of reasons why this is, but the key things to consider are that your site colour scheme, layout and online marketing approach is generic.

It is a standard cart with your products added in and appears to have very little in the way of interaction, visitor value and engaging copy...

oh, and a fundamental reason why you could be having no conversions...it takes an age to get into your product page and when I get there, it is very flat. And I am on 20gb BB.

JMTC

MH1

3rd July 2009, 10:38

Doubt many people would be happy to add a 1p shopping bag to the basket, to then be informed of almost £5 delivery!

Your lack of descriptions, and most importantly lack of selling the sizzle is a huge problem, personally I think your costs are also out, but this is not a line I deal in, but I ship large boxes for under half the amount you charge for a jiffy bag!

James.Dunford

3rd July 2009, 10:51

Agree with everything else that has been said, what marketing are you doing?

Also, i am not an expert in T%C's, but what is this supposed to mean?!

we offer no guarantee of availability and this electronic publication does not constitute an offer for sale.

Also, Typo here, and is this allowed?

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify us against any claims, losses, liabilities, damages and expenses (including legal fees), arising out of your use of this site.

BUCKdesigns

3rd July 2009, 10:55

Havent read the other replies but i would say the site is a little dull, it needs brightening up and the images that you have as adverts below the header look a little tacky, they need to look nice and sharp, as does the 'PayPal Verified' image. Just little things like this can make a persons perception different. It just needs a bit of style and sharpness to it i'd say :)

Good luck with it

TopShopper

3rd July 2009, 11:30

There are some dead images on 'safepayments.com/mall/bonGoutUk/' .
You need to sort this out or get another shopping cart system.

I am suprised that you haven't sold any Amilly Shopping Bags because they are selling foe £0.01 on your site.

Ned to attend to detail I think.

webpromoterservice

3rd July 2009, 13:27

have you looked into what your comeptitors are doing?How are your prices and services compared to theirs.
i agree with many guys here but the truth is there are many rubbish sites out there that do very well,because their prices and services are very competitive

JamesCartwright

3rd July 2009, 13:49

Just a though - but you may want to put some products on the home page, like amazon.co.uk does, rather than talking about your company.

James.

TotallySport

3rd July 2009, 14:27

If this the right price?

http://www.bgluggage.co.uk/mall/productpage.cfm/BonGoutUk/_340210/248205/Amilly%20Shopping%20Bag

Dot Net Guru

3rd July 2009, 15:00

Would you say there is anything about the site which is putting people off buying, or can you think of any improvements i need to consider?.

Just had a quick look at your site and it doesn't even seem to include a H1 tag which is basic SEO.

Also, your products aren't on Google Base, which is a huge opportunity missed.

You've got 39 validation errors on your front page.

Best regards
Nick Chambers, Freelance Web Developer
Website: www .nickchambers .co.uk

Website_Designer

3rd July 2009, 15:14

Hi, been looking at your website and must agree with the other guys here, it is dull.

Just some of my points..

Website photography is vitally important to giving your company a professional image. Poor images can give the impression that you put it together in a hurry and very little care taken.
I feel you may have done most of this yourself ? No offense, but 5 years ago you could get away with DIY builds using free ecommerce templates, but today the ecommerce market is highly competitive and you need to invest in a bespoke ecommerce design and build to even come close to bobbing your head above water along side the big cruse liners.

A big NO NO, is not putting your full postal address in your contact details page and not talking about you and your business in the about us, this gave me no confidence in your company.
Another thing to look at is your pricing, are you competitive with others selling the same or similar quality gear? have a look at them and ask yourself a question, can you beat there overall, delivered to the door price?

Conclusion..

Invest in a bespoke purpose built ecommerce site optimised for your target market
High quality photography and images
Ease up the site navigation
About us page, revamp and talk about you and your company and how you differ from the rest
Add your full company details and address
Check your competitors site and prices, you have to be competitive
Get some good quality links back from relevant and important sites
Get a good SEO company
Try these and you should see a vast improvement in the next six months.

Hope constructive criticism helps.

bestforsextoys

3rd July 2009, 19:37

Hello

Had a look at your site you offer a good range but i think yoyu should get a bigger range and also offer things like mens watches etc something that business men would buy hehe and also add another payment method and lower your delivery to £5.95 and agree exellent rates with fedex i would not buy from your site as you only acceot paypal and for your businesses sake please remove the paypal verified logo that is the horrible logo i have seen

please let me know how you get on and i would get a new website

Thank you
Austin

phillipsinternet

3rd July 2009, 21:06

I agree with all the comments in this thread, the site has so many areas it can be improved in that it really needs to be re-done from the beginning.

I'm gonna weigh in with my two pence, if anyone has anything to add or disagrees with anything I've said please respond.

1. Re-build your store in Magento - it's free!

And get a new payment provider. Either take payments on your site using something like Protx direct, or use a good payment/checkout gateway. Protx/Worldpay are good, as is Google Checkout.

This will make it easier for people to complete purchases. You don't need a merchant account for Google Checkout and only pay per transaction (3.4% + 15p).

2. Host on your own dedicated box (from about £30/month) - without decent performance you'll lose visitors.

The hosting will need to be configured for magento ecommerce but it will be well worth it.

3. Get a modern and effective design - Magento will automatically help with this, a lot of its features are geared towards easy shopping. Make sure the search is easy to find and use.

There are a few good free themes around and a decent design/development company shouldn't be too expensive.

4. SEO - and install Google Analytics (easy to do in Magento) and set up some goal and funnel tracking.

Even if you were to keep the current site this would be the first thing I recommend, funnels will allow you to see where your customers are leaving the site and so improve those areas first.

Also, your site has zero inbound links which will be killing its pagerank. Although pagerank is becoming less important it's still a big factor.

Magento handles a lot of SEO stuff automatically but you'll still need to fill in things like descriptions etc.

5. Adwords - who setup and manages your adwords?

You're probably paying for a lot of clicks that will never convert (result in a sale).

When combined with Analytics you can quickly refine your campaigns but you'll still need to pump a couple of grand in initially over the first few months to get a good idea of what sort of market is available to you.

This increased traffic will also help with the funnel analysis.

6. Prices, delivery and promotions etc. - Emphasise that your products include VAT, make delivery either free or free if they spend over a certain amount, run promotions on certain products that people may buy together.

Remember, if your competitors aren't doing this you'll be beating them, and if they are you need to do it to keep up.

7. FUDs - Fears, uncertainties and doubts - how much is delivery, are my card details safe etc... buyers need reassuring so your design should alleviate their fears

8. Checkout - Golden rules are NEVER force a customer to register with you to make a purchase and let the customer know how far they are through the process.

9. Testing - Once the site is working better, do multivariate and split testing to improve the site.

I hope this gives you a good idea of the directions to take your store, and best of luck.

Now for the shameless plug - if you're serious about the site then send me a PM, we can cover all of the above (and more)

stellarbytes

3rd July 2009, 22:00

2. Host on your own dedicated box (from about £30/month) - without decent performance you'll lose visitors.
Great post, thanks. Do you have any UK-based recommendations for dedicated servers?

Dot Net Guru

4th July 2009, 16:08

Great post, thanks. Do you have any UK-based recommendations for dedicated servers?

UK Fast are excellent, orpossibly try Memset or Zen. Have a look at the ISPA Awards website of the PC Pro Awards page.

Regards
Nick Chambers, Freelance Web Developer
Website: www .nickchambers .co.uk

Dot Net Guru

4th July 2009, 16:08

Great post, thanks. Do you have any UK-based recommendations for dedicated servers?

UK Fast are excellent, or possibly try Memset or Zen. Have a look at the ISPA Awards website or the PC Pro Awards page.

Regards
Nick Chambers, Freelance Web Developer
Website: www .nickchambers .co.uk