FORECASTING ONLINE SALES - opinions required

[Waynelew]

Does anyone have experience, or advice as to estimating potential sales for a startup online business - I am looking to import goods and sell b2b, and b2c online and this will also act as a basis for the quantities of my first import. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
Wayne

[aidanmcgaughey]

Impossible questions to answer.

That's your whole Marketing Mix.

Get on as many Channels as possible with products that there's a demand for.

[VinceSamios]

IMHO a business which is focused simply on selling e-commerce isn't making the most of its potential by a factor of 10.

Most people still prefer to buy over the phone to buying on a website.

Depending on your product your conversion to sale could be as high as 2%, and as low as .02% (or even less)

[Waynelew]

IMHO a business which is focused simply on selling e-commerce isn't making the most of its potential by a factor of 10.

Most people still prefer to buy over the phone to buying on a website.

Depending on your product your conversion to sale could be as high as 2%, and as low as .02% (or even less)

I will have a phoneline for phone orders. I will be out there selling to other businesses face to face. Also plan on having product, and us, out there showing the stuff off. We won't just sit by the computer if that's what you mean!

[Scott-CopyandDesign]

Most people still prefer to buy over the phone to buying on a website.

)

I find this hard to believe. I personally don't know anyone who ever buys anything over the phone.

Do you have any proof to back this up?

[Waynelew]

Impossible questions to answer.

That's your whole Marketing Mix.

Get on as many Channels as possible with products that there's a demand for.

Thanks for the advice Aidan, I know there is a demand, and I don't think the market is oversaturated - I think it is a niche market with plenty of potential: when looking at the potential market and my target market, I have come up against a brick wall as I cannot compare historical online sales figures for similar websites, or quantity of visitors so I can take a guess at conversion rates. Other members have joked that I should think of a number and divide by whatever, and although there is truth in that -it's not very helpful!

[quikshop]

IMHO a business which is focused simply on selling e-commerce isn't making the most of its potential by a factor of 10.

Most people still prefer to buy over the phone to buying on a website.

Depending on your product your conversion to sale could be as high as 2%, and as low as .02% (or even less)

Your honest opinion is one thing but its not really based on reality.

"A factor of 10" is meaningless generalisation.

"Most people still prefer to buy over the phone", please point us in the direction of any survey in the last 5 years that backs up your gut feeling?

A conversion rate of 2% would represent a significant drop in our own retail business, 5% should be the baseline goal of any Ecommerce retail business.

[Ali-v-8]

you have to give more details.
Product
budget to spend
blue widget has 100 clicks on google adwords. You pay top price and receive all clicks.
You get all the traffic available but you are higher priced than person at position 2. he gets the sale.

If you want an idea - search key terms on google key word checker "exact match"
If you pay a decent PPC manager then you should expect 5% min target depending on a number of factors

[paretowasright]

I think you need to get market reports for all the categories you are in then make an estimate of how much of that total market is worth online. You could then work out a year 1, 2, 3 market share you are going to obtain by looking at the total searches for ALL the relevant short and long tail keywords x what share you will grab year 1 etc and then x probably 1%-1.5% conversion (dependant on the category).

So if the category was worth £400M at RRP ex VAT and the online share was 9% you would be after a slice of £36M ex VAT.