Increasing sales / conversion ratio

[managedbusiness]

Hi, my site, pimp-my-ipod.com has had close to 1000 visitors over the past month.

Out of this, I have had no actual sales so far, however I have had a few enquiries etc.

How can I increase the sales ratio and just get more sales in general? I am promoting it by selling the items through an ebay store aswell, and have an advert on thestudentzone.com. In addition to this I have written a few articles on the site which are helping to bring in traffic.

If you have any suggestions of other promotions I can do, or optimisations to the page that would increase sales etc I would be very grateful.

I look forward to all your replies. ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!
James Gupta

[Jamest]

Your site doesn't seem to be alive at the moment

J

[kulture]

Well your site is hard to read with the lack of contrast. There is no visible terms and conditions. There is no obvious contact telphone number or address. and your checkout sucks (a technical term!)

Specifically you ask the customer to register their personal details on an insecure form and once they register you ask them to log on by going back to the registration form now blanked out. I got pissed off and left at that point.

[managedbusiness]

Hi thanks for your comments.
I have been concerned about the checkout taking too long for a while now, and I see what you mean about it 'sucking'.
Perhaps if they didnt register and instead just went straight to PayPal - there if they already had an accout they could just sign in, if not they just enter their address etc through PayPal's secure site.

Tel. Number - I only have my personal number (this is not a full time project for me) so can't really give it away (i dont want it just getting spammed). I could put the address on if it helps validity or something.

Contrast - its okay on my screen but ill take a look at it on others and prbobably make the text darker or something.

Thanks
James

[boho]

From a legal perspective you now have to give full contact details and any company registration number on a website. PSPs such as Worldpay will check for this kind of thing, along with full terms & conditions, returns policy and privacy statement before they even allow installation of your account to go live.

You also didn't have any stock on any of the items I looked at, they all said awaiting stock, that would have been enough to make me leave fairly swiftly.

It's not a very easy site to navigate and hasn't been designed from a consumer point of view.

[managedbusiness]

thanks so much for pointing out the stock thing!! I cannot believe how stupid that was - I should have updated that weeks ago!

wow...


In terms of making the whole process easier / smoother, what would you reccomend besides streamlining the checkout? Obviously the homepage is a key area, should I remove some of the text and put more products on there etc?

James

[boho]

thanks so much for pointing out the stock thing!! I cannot believe how stupid that was - I should have updated that weeks ago!

wow...


In terms of making the whole process easier / smoother, what would you reccomend besides streamlining the checkout? Obviously the homepage is a key area, should I remove some of the text and put more products on there etc?

James
No problem :) Think it may be the biggest reason for no sales.

Unfortunately I've just tried to bring up your site and it just says internet explorer cannot display the webpage?

[managedbusiness]

I've just been doing some fair modifications to the indx page so its possible you caught it mid-upload which may have caused that!

Hope so anyway...otherwise its something more serious.

If you take a look at it now you'll see the homepage shows more pictures and easier direction to the "1G" or "2G" catalogue - my concern now is that it does not at first glance scream "I AM AN ECOMMERCE STORE YOU CAN BUY STUFF ON ME"...it becomes apparant after reading etc but i feel it looks pretty much like an info-site / blog.

Do you share this opinion? if so what do you suggest? I am working on getting prices displayed on the homepage and "add to basket" buttons etc but I think it will need something more than that.

[computerservices]

Hello there,

Had a good look. Nice designs by the way :-)

Firstly, is the search form at the top of the pages necessary ? If you had pages and pages of products then I'd maybe say so, but seen as you only have 1 page of each skin types? Doesn't it just clutter the page up a bit?

Secondly, maybe I'm missing something... but there's no mention about how people switch the fascias over? I operate an iPod repair company as part of my business and people generally have no idea of even how to get into the iPod never mind how to fix anything. Although me and you might take it foregranted there are hundreds of people who wouldn't even know how to take the fascia off... maybe you should offer a set of simple 3 step instructions? 1 set for the first gens and 1 set for the second gens...

Thirdly, when your designing a website from scratch you know how it works inside out. I design websites and get carried away.. you forget how functional it should be for Mrs Smith down the street who only just knows how to use the internet. Get a family member/friend who has never seen the site before to try and order a product of their choice. Watch them as they do it but don't give them any help. The points where they are hesitant show maybe where you need to clean your checkout process up... As Kulture said he got pissed off at a certain point in it and left. You need to watch Mrs Smith down the road (no joke intended) and how she uses your site.

--> Expansion Ideas
- Offer a fitting service for an extra £10 ? Although then maybe it isn't worth changing the fascia... Something you'd have to look into.
- Can you get your hands on any cheap but differently designed covers/cases/headphones/armbands?

Other than that I'm considering buying a few and maybe offering them as a service on our website, but that's something I'll talk to you about.

Hope this helps
Liam

[boho]

Ok it's working fine now, so heres a couple of areas

1) The first couple of photos of real live nano 1g's have what appear to be scratches on them in the photo - this puts me off because I would want the decal to look smooth and like new and it calls into doubt for me the longevity of the product

2) I put the item in my basket and then I get a blank screen with just the option to go back - why, I may just want the 1 and you're stopping me from getting on with the process of purchasing. This page should show my basket and item list, clearly display my postage costs and let me get on with parting with my money, sending me back just irritates me if I'm a busy shopper and just want to get on...at this point I may abandon my basket and give up.

3) Assuming I don't give up and do infact go back, then the cart button is hidden out the way at the top of the screen.

4)I tried to checkout and it really crawled to get to the paypal page...which may just be my connnection tonight, but it did make me laugh that it said pay fast, when it was really slow :)

5) There are no contact details, so who are you, where are you, what do I do if I have a problem, what is your refund policy? All of these questions were not answered.

Add an 'about us' page, tell customers who you are, why they should trust you, how long you've been in business etc - add a personal side to your business.

Add a terms and conditions page, and explain your refund policy, under the Distance Selling Act you have obligations to comply with, such as a 28 day no quibble return policy, you need to read this and clearly display terms that honour your legal obligations. Also contact details do have to be displayed on a website now.

6) Subscribe & then unsub looks sloppy, write it out in full. Better still have the unsubscribe bit separately as part of the customers own account that they log into to manage those preferences, and where they can track their order status, manage their contact details etc.

7) Stick Home on the top navigation on the left hand side rather than the left hand navigation - personla preference for me, but something I find more natural

8) Again personal thing but the left navigation doesn't look professional, or stand out, and the articles with a list of links on the navigation looks untidy, if these were buttons/drop down menus, which then displayed sub categories it would look neater. Otherwise you're just duplicating identical navigation links on the top and left navigation.

9) 'You can pay either with PayPal or with any major credit card through a secure site.' - really, I got no choice other than Paypal during checkout

10) Paypal image on homepage has an alt tag of solutions graphics and show the hand symbol so I clicked on it - but it opens up a white box. I would either disable this or use it to link to a page about secure shopping with Paypal.

[boho]

Also it's a good idea to have your logo banner 'clickable' so that you can use it to return to the homepage.

Can't think of anything else right now :)

Incidentally I love the product, but what about the nano video, as an owner of one of those there are no decals for me :(

Also as computerservices said, I would spend sometime writing an article which explains what the product is, and how to use it.

[managedbusiness]

Thank you so much for all of your replies, youve made some really helpful points.

In response:

computerservices, the products are not as complex as you may have inferred, although your misunderstanding is probably a failing on my part (the site should make it clearer) - they are paper-thin vinyl decals which literally "stick on" to the top of the iPod, although they will last many years.

Good point about the search bar AND great idea about getting some test users - you will see from the homepage i've tried to make it a little easier but can understand why it may be complex.

Do you think having a small (250x500) flash movie on the homepage showing the products being placed onto an iPod would help?

boho: good point about the iPods - these marks are in fact where I have tested them but obviously customers would not know that, i'll put some new photos on.

I'll have the purchase direct them straight to the "review cart" page, from where they can either checkout or buy more.

I'll make a more obvious cart button - there is a link saying view cart on the sidebar but with the recent changes ive made its not on the "first scroll" of the page

Contact details - ill make a nice link which then links to all the various policies / details etc

Good point about unsub - i was never too happy about it but was less happy about having it occupy two lines (sidebar space is a precious commodity afterall!)

The links on the sidebar were a recent change which I guess now make the top nav pretty redundant - i'll keep the left in and delete the top, and probably do some reformatting to "tidy it up". I may even delete the newsletter thing totally - thinking about it its probably not that useful.

PayPal / Credit card - PayPal checkout allows you to login with a PayPal account OR if you dont want one it can just process your credit card details as any other system would.
Ill add a page about PayPal as you suggest.


Again thanks so much for all the advice so far - by the time you read this I should have all or at least most of these changes implemented so if you could give me a final piece of advice it would be great.

PS: regarding 3rd Gen "Video nano" skins - I can't afford them yet! I plan to make some as soon as I have a few sales in.

If you guys want some hefty discount vouchers or something let me know :P

[boho]

I may even delete the newsletter thing totally - thinking about it its probably not that useful.
It's a huge asset promote it in the right way and it can be gold dust, what it is is a freely participating list of would be buyers!

Use it to your advantage and offer members discounts for sign up, monthly competition to win a decal of choice etc

Never underestimate the power of the subscription list :)

[boho]

PS: regarding 3rd Gen "Video nano" skins - I can't afford them yet! I plan to make some as soon as I have a few sales in.
Lol, happy to help, of course if you come across some decent and interesting nano video cases I'd be interested in one of those - so far the ones on the market aren't much cop. I have a red nano video, so I love the colour, but I need to protect the little critter :)

Would be worth demonstrating the decal, oh and explaining how to remove them and reassure that it leaves no residue, how long it will last, whether it's a one shot deal etc..I'd be tempted to pimp mine, but I'd like to be able to return it to it's nice shiny redness easily as well, which is why I'd like a funky case

[managedbusiness]

ps Computerservices - you mentioned you may be interested in buying a few for your own site.

If you have MSN feel free to add me jamespraveen AT aol DOT com, or callme on 07882855829.

James

[managedbusiness]

Hi - just to let you guys know I got my first sale today, so thanks for your help!

James

[boho]

Excellent stuff well done! The first of many I hope :)