Business not taking off!!

[edwinlloyd]

My top tip for a telephone number is to use Skype. I set up a Skype account and bought one of their telephone numbers (about £30 p.a. but available monthly) and use that as my business number. It comes with free voicemail, and the only requirements are that you have broadband and you buy a headset, or USB telephone.

The great advantage of this method for me is that I have moved office 4 times now, as the business grows. Each time, I set up the broadband, plug in the computer and my business telephone is back up and running using the same telephone number. You can also access your Skype Voicemail from any telephone with a special access number.

Skype offer a range of geographical numbers to suit you. I chose an outer London number (0208) deliberately.

 

[SillyJokes]

You've got a lot to do to get this site going and I think you have got a real uphill struggle.

Traditional Wooden Toys is a fairly typical first time business and has been done to death. By using Wood in the title you are limiting yourself to wooden toys which long term is a mistake as I would suspect you'd do better to seek out something else that loads of other people are not doing.

You are also competing with Amazon.co.uk. You won't beat them for price and customer confidence.

If I were you I'd learn as much as you can with this site with a serious view of doing a new and different site when you are ready.

Also, what's with the monkey carrying a dead teddy bear?

 

[RadiusBPO]

Yeah the site needs work, it needs seo, etc etc etc. That all costs a lot of money though.

Why not just list your products on Amazon? sure you lose 7%ish per sale but they take care of marketing, seo, conversion optimisation etc etc

 

[Deleted member 73976]

Hi!

I like your website but: how much do you charge for delivery? Also, in my opinion, "Terms & conditions" and " Privacy Policy" should be more visible (header and footer link?).
And, but it was said before, PO Box and email only are not enough to trust.

But I do like your products.

 

[sarah deng]

hehe... are you interesting in selling another hot products? maybe you will get more customers from it .

just comtact me freely if you are willing to after you check our website .
it is www.chuangyue.en.alibaba.com

 

[So Wood You]

Thanks for the message edwinlloyd. Funny enough we've been looking at Skype today - Seems a better deal than the others we've seen. Easy to set up too!!

My top tip for a telephone number is to use Skype. I set up a Skype account and bought one of their telephone numbers (about £30 p.a. but available monthly) and use that as my business number. It comes with free voicemail, and the only requirements are that you have broadband and you buy a headset, or USB telephone.

The great advantage of this method for me is that I have moved office 4 times now, as the business grows. Each time, I set up the broadband, plug in the computer and my business telephone is back up and running using the same telephone number. You can also access your Skype Voicemail from any telephone with a special access number.

Skype offer a range of geographical numbers to suit you. I chose an outer London number (0208) deliberately.

 

[So Wood You]

Hi Ella

Many thanks for your message.

I charge no more than £4.95 for delivery, smaller and lighter items £2.95 - free if over £150. Couldn't go cheaper than that!!

I'm afraid I can't compete with the big boys, but then again the big boys don't sell what I sell

I am confident that handmade will win over mass market!!

Hi!

I like your website but: how much do you charge for delivery? Also, in my opinion, "Terms & conditions" and " Privacy Policy" should be more visible (header and footer link?).
And, but it was said before, PO Box and email only are not enough to trust.

But I do like your products.

 

[Deleted member 73976]

Hi, I am asking because I couldn't find your information on your website - or i missed it? I always check delivery charges, not only product price. I belive it should be clearly displayed as well as terms, conditions, returns info. It is a bit difficult to find it in your shop.

 

[freeroam]

Hi Ella

Many thanks for your message.

I charge no more than £4.95 for delivery, smaller and lighter items £2.95 - free if over £150. Couldn't go cheaper than that!!

I'm afraid I can't compete with the big boys, but then again the big boys don't sell what I sell

I am confident that handmade will win over mass market!!

I think you're wrong, handmade wont win over mass market. Not without a lot of work. I think you've started on bad footing and on top of that you seem to have a "go-it-alone" attitude when it comes to looking to other sites for assistance. Many businesses like this start on sites like eBay and Amazon and then once a large demand has been recognised move onto the kind of thing you're doing here.

It seems to me you've just gone overkill, and beyond your depth. I don't want to sound like misery guts, but I just wanted to come in this conversation blunt and to the point.

On a positive note the website looks great, you've got some problems with it I wont re-iterate. You need to take a step back and start to think about where the demand for your products is, how to get it and then the features you need in place to ensure those customers purchase from you with peace of mind (telephone line, snazzy website etc).

P.S: I might be completely wrong, and you've thought about all this and done all this. And if so accept my apologies .

 

[wight services]

My wife is an advid online shopper and Looking at your site as mentioned above, delivery prices? Without those she will just shop elsewhere.

Re the phone number situation, as well as skype, there are many 0870/0844 free services that will let you point thier number at your landline, usualy with the option of switching it to voicemail when you cant take the call, so you get the best of both worlds, and customers can still contact you.

 

[xinghu]

Hi

So Wood You, I have a couple of suggestions. Some of your pictures don't enlarge, e.g. the soft toys. These could do with a bit more of a description. For SEO purposes, the domain doesn't have much pull on what it is you are selling. I get the Wood part for wooden toys, but there is no mention of children, kids, toys, etc in your domain. I'm not too sure about the PO Box address either. With children's toys, you really need to make the site and company trustworthy. I can understand your reluctancy to put your own personal address on there, but it would come across better if you didn't put a PO Box address. Have you just tried putting the name of your street and postcode? Legally, you need to have a address and I believe it is prefered that it is the address your company is registered to.

From the pictures I have seen on the site, I am fairly sure you don't hold any stock. I have a similar children's toy website and I operate in the same way as you do.

Send me a private message and I would be happy to discuss things further with you.

All the best,
Andrew

 

[S-Marketing]

Hi

So Wood You, I have a couple of suggestions. Some of your pictures don't enlarge, e.g. the soft toys. These could do with a bit more of a description. For SEO purposes, the domain doesn't have much pull on what it is you are selling. I get the Wood part for wooden toys, but there is no mention of children, kids, toys, etc in your domain. I'm not too sure about the PO Box address either. With children's toys, you really need to make the site and company trustworthy. I can understand your reluctancy to put your own personal address on there, but it would come across better if you didn't put a PO Box address. Have you just tried putting the name of your street and postcode? Legally, you need to have a address and I believe it is prefered that it is the address your company is registered to.

From the pictures I have seen on the site, I am fairly sure you don't hold any stock. I have a similar children's toy website and I operate in the same way as you do.

Send me a private message and I would be happy to discuss things further with you.

All the best,
Andrew

Not being funny but do you think you are in a good position to be advising people about their businesses.

 

[nextdayprint]

Not being funny but do you think you are in a good position to be advising people about their businesses.

Ohhh... I've been away a few weeks... sounds exciting

 

[S-Marketing]

Ohhh... I've been away a few weeks... sounds exciting

Nothing to get excited about. Not going into details about anything on here, but Xinghu will know what I mean. It wasn't a dig, just friendly advice.

 

[mathsmouse]

Hi, I liked the website but I would prefer to be able to click on the smaller items and get a larger picture. I pefer to see what I'm buying.

I am very tempted to buy a pig soft toy though, so will be back soon!

I work in child care sector, you could try putting out leaflets to nursery schools, pre-schools etc offering discount codes, just an idea. Contact other businesses that are invloved in child care/tutoring/nanny agencies and ask if they are interested in reciprocal links, not sure how effective this is but might be worth a go.

Unfortunately there are a lot of online toy shops, if I enter a search for wooden toys lots a sites come up.

 

[xinghu]

Hi Mathsmouse

I completely agree on both points. I thought that it would be better if the images were bigger too. There are a lot of children’s websites out there. One of my websites is a toy site so I know how difficult and competitive it is. Since so many companies now do it, especially ones that are well established like Argos, Tesco, Toys-R-Us, etc (and not mentioning Amazon and eBay), toys are not really a niche market.


Good luck to SoWood You and I really do hope it works out, but it will be a long, hard road ahead.

It would be good if I took my own advice every now and again but I'm very stubborn.

 

[xinghu]

I would just like to add that everybody should have dreams. If you are passionate and believe in what you are doing, you will be successful. Whilst the toy website is going to be difficult, I wouldn't say give up and try something easier. It all depends on how you feel. Determination does pay off in the end, so don't get down if you are not getting the sales you want. Keep your chin up and work hard. You'll start seeing results in the end.

 

[S-Marketing]

I would just like to add that everybody should have dreams. If you are passionate and believe in what you are doing, you will be successful. Whilst the toy website is going to be difficult, I wouldn't say give up and try something easier. It all depends on how you feel. Determination does pay off in the end, so don't get down if you are not getting the sales you want. Keep your chin up and work hard. You'll start seeing results in the end.

Great post. I would like to add though, that a truly gifted businessman or woman, knows when an idea wont work, and makes the difficult decision to give up and try something else.

'If at first you dont succeed, try, try again. If then you still dont succeed, give up, there's no point being a damn fool about it.'

I read that quote as someones signature on a forum, and its very true.

 

[pcproblems]

Just a few minor observations

Meta tags analysis. Title: Title meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 11 characters.
Title relevancy to page content is excellent.
The Title relevancy to page content is 100%.
Description: This tag contains too many characters.
This tag contains 1309 characters. This is too many for what we would consider a 'robot friendly' web page. The maximum number of characters we recommend for this tag is 250.
Description relevancy to page content is very poor.
The Description relevancy to page content is 35%.
Keywords: This tag contains too many characters.
This tag contains 1240 characters. This is too many for what we would consider a 'robot friendly' web page. The maximum number of characters we recommend for this tag is 500.
This tag contains too many keywords.
This tag contains 82 keywords. This is too many for what we would consider a 'robot friendly' web page. The maximum number of keywords we recommend for this tag is 25.
Keyword relevancy to page content is terrible. However, this is not necessarily bad if you have a lot of content. The most important factor is to have your keywords on the page a few times.
The keywords relevancy to page content is 2%.
Robots: The Robots meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 13 characters.
Author: The Author meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 11 characters.

 

[So Wood You]

Just a few minor observations

Meta tags analysis. Title: Title meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 11 characters.
Title relevancy to page content is excellent.
The Title relevancy to page content is 100%.
Description: This tag contains too many characters.
This tag contains 1309 characters. This is too many for what we would consider a 'robot friendly' web page. The maximum number of characters we recommend for this tag is 250.
Description relevancy to page content is very poor.
The Description relevancy to page content is 35%.
Keywords: This tag contains too many characters.
This tag contains 1240 characters. This is too many for what we would consider a 'robot friendly' web page. The maximum number of characters we recommend for this tag is 500.
This tag contains too many keywords.
This tag contains 82 keywords. This is too many for what we would consider a 'robot friendly' web page. The maximum number of keywords we recommend for this tag is 25.
Keyword relevancy to page content is terrible. However, this is not necessarily bad if you have a lot of content. The most important factor is to have your keywords on the page a few times.
The keywords relevancy to page content is 2%.
Robots: The Robots meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 13 characters.
Author: The Author meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 11 characters.

Thanks for this Andy - very useful!!

Have made the necessary changes - didn't realise I had loaded so many

 

[gemd89]

My gran was looking for some wooden trains for my son, will pass your site on to her for his birthday in september! The site is lovely, only think is on left there are 2 'bed' icons and also a picture came up of a play kitchen but i couldnt fit in when i clicked on kitchen and i couldnt find anywhere to search through products

I have 2 kids, 6 months and 22 months so iwould be your target market

Gemma

 

[Hedgie]

HI there,

Many where will remember I had an online traditional wooden toy store (hedgehogtoys.co.uk).

Looking at your site a couple of things jump out at me.

1) You need multiple pictures or at the least a larger version of the pictures you have at the moment. If you don't have any , get in touch with the manufacturers as they are usually quite happy to supply you with images.

2) PAYPAL can be off putting for a lot of people so if possible get an alternative such as Google checkout or Paypoint. It also menas that if you have any issues with Paypal then you have a backup.

3) The header to the site is way too big.

4) The front page need to be more appealing. As others have said, get some nice pictures up etc to grab peoples attenetion.

5) Brio are not strictly handmade and when it comes to competing with the big boys for Brio i'm afraid you will lose out.

I have a list of great toy company manufacturers who you could possibly include. Feel free to PM me if you want any info.

Cheers

Chris

 

[FKI]

This just doesnt look right. feature a few items on the home page.

 

[pcproblems]

Thanks for this Andy - very useful!!

Have made the necessary changes - didn't realise I had loaded so many

You're most welcome... When you look at the source code you can see that the title is:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="ltr">
<head>
<title>So Wood You</title>

Have a look at some other sites because you may find that yours could do with being more descriptive.
Mine, for example, is
<title>Computer Repairs In Salisbury |PC Problems | Salisbury PC Repairs</title>
although I cater for people based on location.
Just my thoughts, get some advice from the pros on the seo section of this forum

 

[SmilePrint]

Hi Debi,

great work so far.

BUT, businesses exist to satisfy a demand. If you were on Dragon's Den now, or even with your Bank Manager, or any savvy marketer they would ask:- have you researched the demand?

What is the size of this demand as a % of the over all toy market?

If you have found a "hungry" market great. Next question.

Do you know how to get them to find you?

I think your issue isn't so much about a poor website (because its not poor) your issue is "where is my market", and "how do I get them to find me".

Improved website, SEO, and many of the things already mentioned are the vehicles you can use to connect you to your market.

But until you identify who they are; where they are; how you can connect with them [en masse], your efforts aren't going to pay for your retirement.

Is was OK for Kevin Costner to believe "build it and they will come" - in the fantasy world of holywood films, but in the real world of business, off and on line, "build it and they will come is NOT A REALITY.

Hoping you will find them....

Best Wishes

 

[The Fixer]

I think the site looks ok but has some problems. For example if I click on the fire engine I don't get a close up whereas with others I do. On the left menu there seem to be several repetitions for some reason? The SEO point is correct and you must work on this to get more hits. As a parent myself I think there is a market for traditional wooden toys but it is inevitably going to be a niche, so you must target carefully. More information about each product would be a big help and I agree with the previous comment about the home page - tell your customers why they should buy from you, and why wooden toys are so much better etc...Also you need to accept that many people (myself included) will not buy from any site that has now address or phone number. The first obstacle to cross in getting people to buy online is your credibility, which is intrinsically linked to their own security.

 

[bobagump]

According to google statistics I have 5+ hits a day but no one is buying.

> 5 hits is nothing. If you have 100-1000 Unique IP visitors per day its starting to get interesting

> Quality of visitors is very important. Find out where your visitors are coming from and why they are visiting your website. If you just have trash visitors which accidently came to your site and arent interested at all in your stuff, you can have tons of visitors...but you will never will sell anything.
Make sure its "Target Interested Customers".

> If you are sure you have quality visitors interested in your type of products, make sure your website has a good usability to find and buy stuff. Dont offer "Exit links" on your websites, links which lead away of your website or which keep people from buying your products.

You can even trash 1000 Pounds a day in Google Ads and no one with buy your products, if you dont stick to elemental shop criterias. There are so many important aspects to optimize and analyse. Not even talking of shop payment/shipping options, customer expectations, site loading speed and browser compability, website mobile device support/usability etc.
On the technical side install Firebug for Firefox as example and start an site analyisis - Its easy to do for anyone.

Best is to compare your website to the best competitiors and to analyse why people are buying there...and then taking the best of "their world" in to your world ( website )...and of course next to presentation...good quality advertising is important. Your already doing Guerilla Marketing by writing in this forum.

Good luck

 

[xinghu]

Of course 5 visitors is nothing. However, 1000 visitors is nothing if you can't convert any of them into sales. It's not mainly the amount of traffic onto your site, but more the type of traffic. I have seen people, and this includes myself, spending a lot of money on PPC and, if you don't know what you are doing, you can get hundreds of clicks and no sales. Running a successful business does depend on hitting the right audience. Perhaps it is time to go back to the drawing board and do some research on who your customers are, before you work out how to get them onto your website?

 

[Vintage06]

I'd say get some good offers on your front page that stand out. a good deal will always drag the customer in.

 

[xinghu]

Getting good offers on the homepage is good, but what good would it do if nobody knows the site is there? Once the website/homepage has been polished up, Social networking might be a good place to start..

 

[EH7]

Im sorry, but did you not think about doing this research before going into business?

 

[gemd89]

Thats all well and good if people are getting to the home page.

What advertising has been done?

Gemma

I'd say get some good offers on your front page that stand out. a good deal will always drag the customer in.

 

[peebles]

Hi,

There's some harsh comments on here! What's with the derogatory tone everyone? She's looking for help not criticism.

My thoughts are that your website is great. You do need to put your own address on though, it's just in case I make an order and spend £100 with you and then it doesn't show up and I have no way of contacting you/the courts getting hold of you for a refund.

You are operating in a very competitive market, but that's no reason to give up. You need to drive people to your website and SEO is really important - you should get it looked at - but there are other ways as well.

1. Have you got any adverts on ebay?
2. Could you partner up with another toy firm who doesn't really sell wooden toys? They could put your products on their website and get a commission from it.
3. Could you stand outside your local toy shop for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon and hand out flyers? (Might be dodgy so you'll have to keep your eye out! Or else stand at the end of the street/in the town centre and hand out to people with children)
4. PR - You have lovely products. Could you donate one to the local hospital and get your name in the paper? And/or run a children's competition to win one of the toys. Get them out in the park running around, doing say 3 tasks and the winner wins a toy worth £75. The press will love it, especially if you're creative with the tasks.
5. Think about your USP. What things make your business different form everyone elses?

PM me if you want to discuss more.

Peebles.

 

[jasonatbbi]

...there are one or two improvements that I would make. Firstly, you have to add some products to the 'products' page, otherwise you are asking people to make too many clicks - as a general rule of thumb, every click required to get you to where you want to be is an opportunity to leave.
Also, put your telephone number somewhere prominent and add a person's name - give the image more of a homely feel.
That leads me to my main point, the products you are selling and the feel of the site combine to make a really appealing shop front. Parents and in particular grandparents would look at the site and say, "How nice. I'll get little Annie something traditional, well made and pretty from these lovely people." However, having thought that, they are presented with leaving the site to pay, no contact name to call and an address that's a PO Box number. This is all completely impersonal and cold and gives precisely the opposite impression to the one cultivated by the site's layout and design. In fact, it gives the site a decidedly 'dodgy' feel.
Please do something about the way you are alienating your would be customers - I am sure you will find your conversion rate improves straightaway, (if not the amount of traffic).
Good luck!

 

[amphis software]

I would change the page title to start with "Wooden Toys" as I think that people looking for a site like yours would type that into google. I think this would improve your SEO. Personally, I would use a page title of :-

"Wooden Toys - Eco Friendly Traditional Wooden Toys and Furniture"

I like the site but as a buyer I'd be put off by the words "contact me" on the contact us page. I'd change that to "contact us".

Regards

Tom

 

[movietub]

Get rid of the 'online shop' button. The landing page should be the online shop, not a welcome page.

Google wants to see product links directly from index page of the site. Cycle products throught the main page as well.

To be honest, there is so much wrong with the site that I get the impression you have done zero research into properly setting up an online business. I could list 20 problems at a glance, all of which would be covered in any good book on the subject.

Also consider that your products have no brand, so you can't use price comparison engines etc to draw in traffic. This means that you are more relient than ever on good SEO, including really high quality product descriptions, to draw enough traffic to make a business.

5 unique visitors a day is not enough to sell, it may well be 5 search engine spiders - not even real people. Your target should be at least 500 uniqe visitors each day.

Go buy a good book!

 

[mac bond]

Hi everyone

I'm new to this forum and also new to owning a business. I opened an online toy shop in March this year and it doesn't seem to be taking off as well as I'd hoped.

According to google statistics I have 5+ hits a day but no one is buying.

I've posted 1000's of flyers but still haven't had any orders and I'm starting to get very disheartened by it all. I know things take time to get off the ground but I would have thought I'd get at least one order by now.

If anyone has some time please could you take a look at my site and tell me if there is anything wrong with it. Is it the site or the products I'm selling. Are they too expensive etc.

I feel as if I am fumbling around in the dark and don't really know if I am doing it right - is there anyone out there who has 'been there', 'done that' then I'd be very grateful if you could give me a few tips.


Hope you can help
Debi

So Wood You traditional wooden toys and much more...

Same with me at 1st but now doing very good thank to my mate telling me about a good man in leeds hes been good for my business hpoe all is well with you soon Mac

 

[bjg123]

Hi,

Your website looks like it's coming along well, but it could do with some tidying up, when I'm browsing your products, the links down the left hand side have some of the products repeated more than once. This means there's a lot of unecessary scrolling to be done. In fact, there's a bit too much scrolling involved all over. I'd say where you're listing products, to have more than one horizontally on the page, as a larger image, with the price, get rid of the info text and have the information on the next page when you click on the image of the product you are interested in. This would make the site a bit tidier and might help out a bit.

 

[MotivateChange]

Hi there, I am a marketing consultant, and although work predominantely in the hospitality industry, I would be happy to give you some pointers. PM me if you want to talk.

 

[xinghu]

HI there,

Many where will remember I had an online traditional wooden toy store (hedgehogtoys.co.uk).

Looking at your site a couple of things jump out at me.

1) You need multiple pictures or at the least a larger version of the pictures you have at the moment. If you don't have any , get in touch with the manufacturers as they are usually quite happy to supply you with images.

2) PAYPAL can be off putting for a lot of people so if possible get an alternative such as Google checkout or Paypoint. It also menas that if you have any issues with Paypal then you have a backup.

3) The header to the site is way too big.

4) The front page need to be more appealing. As others have said, get some nice pictures up etc to grab peoples attenetion.

5) Brio are not strictly handmade and when it comes to competing with the big boys for Brio i'm afraid you will lose out.

I have a list of great toy company manufacturers who you could possibly include. Feel free to PM me if you want any info.

Cheers

Chris

I looked at hedgehogtoys.co.uk and there was nothing but a holding page. Did you have the children's site removed?