Boosting online sales.

[tbbtstore]

I run a second hand book business and sell through a website and ebay shop. I need to increase sales asap. Any ideas

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[antropy]

What sort of traffic generation methods you're using? Traffic plays an important role when it comes to boosting your sales. Take a look at the online marketing methods here that you can use to boost your sales:

http://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/quick-overview-of-online-marketing-methods/

Hope this helps.
Paul

 

[cheap]

Try posting to free ads sites there free so you have nothing to lose apart from some of your time.
Hope this helps good luck.

 

[seoswat]

Get some business cards made which links to your website.

(if you cant afford to buy them, then just print out some basic contact details on paper)

With every purchase put one of them inside the package - this way if its made through Ebay, hopefully next time they will come through to your site and its a good way to help boost repeat customers.

 

[altwebdesign]

Use greta images that make your product look desireable and when your writing the descriptions SELL the product, describe it as something I cant live without.

Also in search results e.g Ebay make the product title something so compelling i HAVE to click

 

[junedc]

use free ads, social marketing like facebook too. create one commercial account , add anybody then create groups add them all, join other groups too.

 

[webgeek]

'Donate' a box or two of books to the nearest school, mentioning that you'd like to help them encourage reading and book reports by offering a X% student discount.

Do the same with the nearest church Sunday school.

Have a look at your website SEO and work on getting more traffic through optimisation and link building.

 

[8420PR]

(1) Reducing the price - this will increase the conversion rate (number of people who visit the website/view your ebay sales and the actually purchase).

(2) Google adWords pay per click advertising - to increase the number of visitors to your site (and if you select the keywords right also looking to buy one of your books).

Both these can be done in hours, but also could reduce your profits... If it was me I would have a little experiment first and see the impact.

 

[callumlaird]

Hi,
Have you got your website integrated with Google's shopping feed (or merchant center as they call it).

From clients I have worked with I have noticed that this can increase sales massively, assuming that your prices are competitive.

Simply search google for "Google Merchant Center"

 

[kashif1246]

i think social media and forums made more impact than any other optimization tool. what do you say?

 

[webgeek]

i think social media and forums made more impact than any other optimization tool. what do you say?

Social media is one of the worst drivers of sales. It may help with the purchase process by conveying trust, but is one of the last places I'd be looking to use for driving local sales.

 

[kashif1246]

So do you suggest telemarketing instead of social media marketing?

 

[webgeek]

Telemarketing... for selling used books?

No.

You need visibility with the types of buyers you are most likely to attract. If your most frequent buyers are retirees, then put up flyers where they go most often. If students, then target their haunts.

The highest efficiency will come from targeting groups. Get the word out to those groups and you leverage the fact that they're congregating and self referential (hence they may talk about your books).

Alternatively, go with flyer distribution in the postcodes where your target market resides.

SEO for a website would be great too, albeit more medium to long term.

 

[webstore]

Just like on the high street where more online shops can mean more sales and hopefully more profit, the same can hold true with on-line shops.

So consider a second (or even more) on-line shops presenting your secondhand books in a different way. Let's say a decent percentage of your books are on "xyz" then build your second site around those books with the domain name SecondHandXyzBooks.co.uk making sure your home page has a good write up on the subject of "xyz". Also make sure each "xyz" book for sale has different copy to your main site and maybe hold back some "xyz" books just for listing on your "xyz" on-line shop.

Do also make sure your have the ISBN number appearing in the page TITLE, product URL and product short description as you might have prospective customers searching just by ISBN on Google etc.

 

[WebProfitsConsulting]

I'd suggest opening a Google adwords account, and bidding on very specific keyword terms such as the titles of the books you have on sale. The number of impressions are likely to be low, but the depth of interest for someone that clicks on your ad is going to be very high.

You can certainly get a free £50 google adwords voucher to test the waters, which in your industry should be plenty to see if this is a viable way forward.

 

[PhilipWest]

Write an interesting article about the life of a book salesmen.

 

[JamiePMortimer]

Social media is one of the worst drivers of sales. It may help with the purchase process by conveying trust, but is one of the last places I'd be looking to use for driving local sales.

Social Media is the worst driver of sales because the people who are doing are horrible at using it. Too many people either push adverts down the throat of their followers/fans or people see someone say 'I love the Harry Potter books' and the first thing they do is say 'Hey, I've got Harry Potter books, heres a discount'.

How about trying to create some context with people, work hard at it & then tell me it's terrible.

 

[cheaper accountant]

In my opinion the only guaranteed method of driving more traffic to your website is ranking highly in the search engines. This can be done in two ways:

1) by investing in Google Adwords and you can achieve results here very quickly

2) devising a sound SEO plan that ensures that your website ranks number one or as close to as possible for your key search terms.

You will find it a lot easier to rank well for niche keywords (or search terms), so if you specialise in selling "children's language books", for example, there is likely to be less competition than targeting the keyword "books".

 

[JamiePMortimer]

I assume you tried Social Media & it didn't work?

 

[JamiePMortimer]

The reason I ask is I've just found someone who tweeted on Wednesday that they need to get an accountant, they're a director of a roofing company & they tweeted that from 10 mins drive away from your office.

I love it when people tell me not only does social media not generate sales, but it's no use for B2B. I know it's not guaranteed business, but if you were at the pub & someone said the same thing, would you ignore it or would you say something?

If it's any consolation, no one replied.

 

[Websitehandyman]

I find book sales very hard online, well second hand books in general.

You have to try to take away the reason why someone interested in a book won't buy it there and then from you. Some of these reason might be condition, price, postage or just the way your site works.

The least important of those reason in my opinion is price - if your prices are sensible, a simple search on any book title will show the same second hand book is price from £1 to perhaps £50. So price to sell !

Next is delivery cost. Some people don't bother to put the work in to find the cheapest way of sending item via post. For example many don't even bother with second class and other don't know books can be sent cheaper as "printed items". Then the is a point were royal mail is not the cheapest option and the fact some postal services are cheaper for some countries then others. Research is needed and perhaps a category for Free Delivery on heavy books where you can build your costs into the price of the book.

Finally work and build your mailing list using promotions.

 

[JamiePMortimer]

Simon's problem is probably Amazon & technology. How do you compete with a company that has a reputation for good customer service & cheap prices which include 2nd hand books? It's really hard, but not impossible. Zappos.com were purchased by Amazon in 2009 & one reason was they were outselling Amazon on some of the same lines for a higher price. Zappos simply outcared Amazon & built a loyal following of customers.

 

[PhilipWest]

20+ years ago I had a student pre Christmas Job in a factory making cakes. 5 days before the festive period they laid us all off as we left they factory at 10PM. Walked into the pub for an end of job celebratory pint mentioning I had just been laid off to the barman. Bloke next to me asked if I could start at 7:00 the next morning on a coring machine. Another 3 weeks of work!!

 

[cheaper accountant]

The reason I ask is I've just found someone who tweeted on Wednesday that they need to get an accountant, they're a director of a roofing company & they tweeted that from 10 mins drive away from your office.

I love it when people tell me not only does social media not generate sales, but it's no use for B2B. I know it's not guaranteed business, but if you were at the pub & someone said the same thing, would you ignore it or would you say something?

If it's any consolation, no one replied.

I completely agree with your comments. I actively use Twitter to engage with potential clients and to build my brand presence and trust. We've been successful in attracting a number of clients though Twitter and we've also built some good business relationships.

 

[kashif1246]

google shopping is also a way but social media and forums are also impact able

 

[angelcan]

Online sales can be increased if our website is receiving good response from the targeted audience so it is required to advertise your website in a manner that can best reach to its target audiences and an precise and optimized website is highly preferable by the search engines.

 

[kashif1246]

do you believe content is the king, if i m talking about website?

 

[PhilipWest]

You can always look at the back links of your competitors website and see who has been blogging about them and contact them to get them to blog about your site

 

[kashif1246]

Whatever i think, instead of blogging by other users who are blogging for your competitor website, why not to give a lot of impact able reviews,those are in bounds to our website?

 

[puresilva]

Second hand books? Get onto forums / messageboards and get involved with discussions related to book reading / writing. If you sell a particular genre better than others, narrow down forums / messageboards related to that genre of fiction. I think you're lucky in that you're selling something people like to talk about and share their opinion on (their favourite author, book, most recently read book etc). I'm also very sure you'd be able to get yourself some new stock too by "networking" with readers on these types of forums - avid book readers have plenty of already-read books on their shelves after all.

 

[kashif1246]

can you please suggest me some list of forums related to travel and tourism?

 

[sarahjohs]

Hi there,

Here are a few things you can do.

1. Invest in good SEO for your website. This will help it rank better in search engines. You don't necessarily have to shell out much for this. I get SEO done from a company calledIntegra web services.

2. I hope you have a nice looking website as well. If not invest in a pleasant web design. The same company mentioned above takes up this service also.

3. Be on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Google plus. I would particularly recommend that you be active on Linked In and take part in discussions that takes place there(join groups). It is a good place to get the word around.

Another nice, thoughtful idea is to print cute bookmarks with your branding on it and place it between every book that you sell. Make sure you have your social media icons on it.

Hope you find this useful. Good luck

 

[webgeek]

can you please suggest me some list of forums related to travel and tourism?

Google is your friend

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&outp...b&q=list+of+travel+forums&fp=3d0e8a8ef102516c

Teach a man to fish....

 

[kashif1246]

Thanks geek!!! let me check your link.

 

[PhilipWest]

Youtube infomercial

Can anyone recommend a company or freelancer to create a simple 1 - 2 Min infomercial on how to navigate our website?

It is a simple site but quite a few steps to design your own product and a recipe saving function that makes it more complex than the average e-commerce site.

Any thoughts / recommendations would be great...