eBay shop works, our website doesn't!

[paulkaye]

Here's an interesting one:

At the beginning of this year I set up my father-in-law an eBay shop to sell his halogen lighting (he's a wholesaler) online.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Brookwade-Lighting

It slowly became popular and although it's a little business, we're reasonably happy with the increase in revenue it has brought in. More recently, I've become a bit more confident in web stuff so set up a 'normal' website for him using PayPal as the shopping basket and clearing house. I'm using Google adwords to bring in customers and we've had many clicks. However, we're simply not getting the conversions! Could anyone who has the time, have a look at

http://www.brookwade.com

and tell me what would put you off. I know the prices are amazing and there's free delivery (i.e. no surprise charges to put people off at the last minute). I've had some advice from the forum before and followed it (kind of!) but it hasn't helped. Can you think why eBay works and our website doesn't?!

Many thanks for your time (whoever you may be!)

Paul

 

[SillyJokes]

It's probably as simple as the number of people who search ebay compared with the number of people who visit your site.

Your strapline Wholesale lighting direct to your door could put off retail customers - it creates confusion in my mind as to whether I am on the right website for me.

Try Halogen lighting at wholesale prices instead.

I wouldn't mention you import from the Far East - it makes your lights sound like knock offs.

A quick google search for a product specific code Par-30 White plus uk - you are absolutely nowhere to be found.

Ebay will have the traffic, and I do not think you are geting any on the retail site. That's your answer.

 

[cjd]

I'd agree with that and add that using Pay Pal to sell to business looks amateur and would put me off - it's a dead giveaway that you're a small outfit.

A normal credit card system would match your business better.

I also always look at the 'About' part of a new site before I buy. Yours says absolutely nothing about you except that you're "committed to quality and service". Well who isn't? ;-)

Good looking, functional site tho'.

 

[Kyotee Matt]

OK, one thing stood out to me as a potential hurdle: When I was browsing through your products, I couldn't find any way of purchasing! I did then realise that the actual products are shown below the fold. To me, the page looked like it had finished (I don't tend to look at the vertical scroll bar much), so I just moved to the next page, and the next page, and so on. After looking at four or five different pages, I realised that I was not going to find a purchase button, and realised at that point that the products were further down the page.

I have found in the past that seemingly insignificant changes like having your 'Add to Card' buttons visible immediately will increase your conversion rate by a huge percentage.

Why not have a 'Purchase Now' button in the product description box, which leads to a page that allows the user to choose the wattage, size or whatever of your products?

Hope this helps!

 

[paulkaye]

Fantastic! Thank you all for your advice. I'm going to do some work on it this weekend.

KEEP IT COMING!!!

 

[Rob Holmes]

There are a few things very clear to me..

I think in your header you should include a location - just tell people you are in the UK - at the moment you could be anywhere - but infact due to no location people will actually think 'nowhere' rather than anywhere. Maybe have a silhouette of the Uk or add a strap line 'Making the UK a brighter place' or something like that..

Do you have web stats on your hosting - can you tell how many unique visitors you have and how they found you?

Also I suggest replacing the watermark on your photos with your web address.

Lastly (for now) your cart pages have a different format to your home page - people need to have a consistent travel through your site from initial page to completing the payment details to minimise risk of them getting scared off.

Hope this helps,

Rob

 

[DeveloperBloke]

cjd

I'd agree with that and add that using Pay Pal to sell to business looks amateur and would put me off - it's a dead giveaway that you're a small outfit.

i would have to completely disagree with you here. :wink:

paypal is the primary payment method for ebay, so it is not for small businesses.

paypal is cheap, 2 - 3% per transaction or 20p

try getting that with a credit card provider, merchant account and payment gateway, not a hope in hell, you will be looking at typically, 250 setup, plus 4% or 40p, + 1% gateway fee, plus a monthly charge.

paypal have launched a new service only available in america at the moment which allows you to process payments from your own site without visiting theirs, a very powerful payment method,

paypal have recently started pure crdit card processing which doesnt need a customer to be a paypal customer which is good

i would stick with paypal until this is launched in the uk next year (hopefully next spring i think)

j

 

[paulkaye]

I agree with the fact that PayPal is easy to install, cheap and has no monthly fee. That's why I'm using them. But I completely understand cjd too. It still does look amateurish. If it's true that there is a service on the way that means not having to leave my website then that is great news. However the 'not needing a PayPal account' thing (called "account optional") has at least one MAJOR problem that they seem to not want to fix or explain why they set it up this way (literally, I've been blocked from a forum for even asking about it!!!) - PayPal sets a cookie on your computer so that if anyone has EVER logged into PayPal on that computer, the option to not use your account is absent from the payment screen!!!

 

[bwglaw]

Is it my MAC or me - why do I get "view basket" at the very bottom of the page after so much white space.

As for ebay v. your own site. I had a shop on ebay and my own site. Simply that ebay has the "safeguards" in place and ebay does generate a lot of traffic.

I could not see anything referring to your Terms and Conditions, or anything to reassure the user to buy from your site. Don't even know which secure payment processor you are using.

Hope this is a good start. When others in UK wake up they will jump in!

 

[bwglaw]

Thats strange - it showed on my screen that there was no-one else posted so I replied hence my last remark then I see 8 replies.

Oh, I need some sleep, something not right with me!

 

[paulkaye]

Hehe - damn, you found it! There's a very good reason for that 'view basket' all the way down there. For some unknown reason, if I get rid of it, the table collapses slightly, and each page aligns slightly differently. Oh, what a fantastic coder I am and what a neat website! But hey, I don't think anyone else spotted it so I'm not going to bother fixing it just yet! Terms and conditions, thank you for the idea. I will do that. Someone else has mentioned the 'about us' not having anything. I really do need to get round to taking up all this advice (someone has even offered to help me over the phone) but I have been completely overwhelmed with work lately. I WILL DO IT THOUGH!

 

[mattk]

Paul - this is a very interesting anecdote. I strongly recommend to people starting out that eBay is the key, at least in the short term.

I hope you manage to get your own site up and running though. My comment is that I was slightly baffled as to what I was looking at. I'm not expert and I don;t know my MR16's from my GU10's! I'd suggest you putting some images on the homepage to at least give your customers an idea of what you sell.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Paul,
I am currently in a possition like yours where I can either go for paypal or something more advanced. I did read some of the sticky threads and found a system called roman cart which I can combine with paypal (and nochex which I like more) and from the small amount of testing I have done seems to be more popular and give off a more professional feeling.

Regarding the view basket thing, try sticking the following in (without speach marks) "".

Also getting back on track, I am planning to do something like you, selling on ebay and my own domain and to get more traffic to my site, with each ebay order I am planning on putting a flyer in advertising my ecommerce website, with a bit of luck this will get people going ot the site.

-Tom

 

[cjd]

It's worth joining the Federation of Small Business as not only do you get legal help if things go wrong (and other useful stuff) but you also get very good rates on Streamline credit card transaction systems - around 1.5% if I remember correctly.

http://www.fsb.org.uk/benefits/#top

 

[Richard Conyard]

One bit that does pop out is how many visitors are you getting to your site?

So far you've a google page ranking of 0 (the worst), so that needs improving. I'd also take the following steps.

Link your titles closer to the products
Include some form of meta-data
Describe your products more (good for customers and search engines)
Look at doing a Froogle feed
Enter your site into various search engines (most are free)

 

[paulkaye]

Thank you all - keep 'em coming!

 

[billhilton]

One thing I always encourage clients to do is look at the 'big boys' of ebusiness, and compare your site to theirs. So check out www.amazon.com and www.expedia.com and www.ebay.com and all the rest of them. They spend millions on web R&D, and it's possible to learn some useful lessons.

First, if you're selling stuff don't be afraid to look busy. "Keep it simple" is an excellent design rule, but one that's much misunderstood. "Simple" doesn't mean "sparse". If you walked into a physical shop that didn't have much stuff on the shelves you wouldn't be very impressed - the same principle holds good with an online store. Amazon and co. make their pages busy to show there's a lot going on. They also add a date or some news to show that things are kept up to date.

Second, remember that people don't read web pages like they read print pages. When you visit a website you tend to scan across the top of the page and then down the right hand side - which is why so many ecommerce sites put menus across the top and then special offers and such like on the right. Amazon change their site every day, but you can bet your bottom buck that if you go there now there'll be some sort of feature or special offer - basically on stock they want to shift in bulk or they think is seasonally appropriate - slapped over in the r.h. margin. They know what's where it makes the best impression.

Third, although the skinnyrib/A4 page look is popular at the moment - I use it, for a start - it's generally been avoided by large scale ecommerce. The skinny look is inspired by blogs, and also by the need for simple non-display-sniffing programming in these days when monitor sizes are exploding. Expedia are toying with it a little, but Amazon and (for example) PCWorld are staying well clear - they know the value of that right hand space.

On the value of the top-and-right rule - why do you think Google put their paid ads along the top and down the right hand side of SERPs? Because they know that's where they'll get the most clicks.

So why not stick some products or offers in those positions and see what happens? You can test it out by using a split testing service like www.SiteSwitcher.com (former client of mine) to see what configuration works best. In line with some previous posters, I'd say your ebay store will continue to do better, because it has the backing of a big brand. But if your work on your website, your copy and your brand you should be able to pick sales up at least a bit.

Good luck!

 

[paulkaye]

Hey Bill,

Thanks for your really in-depth reply. I feel bad as so many people have given me great advice and I still haven't got round to implementing much of it. Making it busier, especially the homepage, sounds like a very good idea. But I also need to get around to sorting out the search-engine results which are terrible!

Keep the advice coming guys!

Paul