Need help and advice please

[jellybabys]

Hello
Well its the first time im here and i would love some help.

We started our business around 24mts ago and i designed the site myself, i have had no training and just visited forum like this and started to read up on things, it was a slow start but has grown in to some what a big business, we get around 1500-2000 unique visitors per day and about 3.5 million page hits a month, sales are up and down, sometimes 15 a day and other days 5, we are number one in Google for many major keywords for our business and getting to number one in .com again for many of our top keywords so we are having no problems with the SEO side.

We started the business with only a few products but with the help of drop shipping and taking most of the profits and buying more product lines we have grow to about 350 products but still i think we are thousand of products short.

So i will get to the point why im here on this great forum, me and my partner had no experience with business nor web sites when we started, it was just hard work that got us to where we are today, but i feel we should push the business and start adding a lot more products, our biggest hit per month is baby clothes but we have very little on the site so get very little sales from that range, but this is the most expensive area just one good range could cost us £5000-£10000 and that would just be the winter range if we was going to do it right.

We have two kids, loans, credit cards a mortgage cars to pay out for each month ( just like most people ) and we put most of the profits back into the business as i said, so you can see we have not got a lot of money, and my partner is worried that if we get a loan and it does not sell then we would be in trouble, i can see her point and we have a lot to lose, but im sure we could make it work.

I'm sorry it was such a long post, i would love to here what experts would do or think?
Kind Regards

Dave

jellybabys.co.uk

 

[stephendoyle]

hi dave,

great site - oscommerce is the best i find for online catalogues.

well put together and products look great.

you have the basis of a good sound business here.

firstly i think that you should work on the conversion to order rate.

everything is on special offer and then discounted - have an initial first customer cannot turn down offer i use to use 3 for the price of 2's
special but you could put a package of items together at a discount.

your conversion rate is below 0.5% of order rate and i would aim in the near future to raise that to 2 to 5%

this would bring in a considerable amount of extra income

try to capture the traffics details or get them to register to use the database of customers and keep in contact with them newsletters etc.

change the amount you charge or go into wholesale options.

good luck

Stephen Doyle

m: 07877658579
w: www.ccuk-ltd.com
e: [email protected]

Super Human Sales Training
& Killer Copy Writing

 

[maruby]

It's a lovely site and you have some really unique looking clothes.

I would recommend a newsletter too - I am impressed with your range of articles though

 

[Alice3537]

I've taken a look at your site. I think your figures are off both from a wholesale and retail POV.

A t-shirt for a newborn would have to be VERY special for me to spend £11.99 on it, to be honest.

Plus, I know at least one manufacturer in the UK alone who does nice product at comparatively low cost.

You are not only competing with other on-line reailers, but the likes of Asda et al. The product is not 'exclusive' enough to warrant the price.

In addition, you market as a kiddy company yet have 18 baby clothes products for boys and 21 for girls - I agree that you need to pad this out as they are not 'special' enough to encourage sales that would make that small a range work for you.

Go with what the hits say - look at what you get least traffic on and prune it. Really research your suppliers in terms of competitiveness on cost etc.

I really don't see how you have to put the funds into this that you state you do, unless you are talking about exclusive designs.

Well done on getting where you have though - I like the site design and the range you have! And would most certainly buy from you in the future!

A

 

[jellybabys]

Thank you both,

Yes oscommerce is a great shopping cart with loads of contributions.

I think the conversion rate would be a lot better if we expanded our clothing range ??

I like the idea to put all the items on a special then reduce then with a discount, as you said no one can turn down a bargain

And its funny you both said the newsletters, i was just putting together one with constant contact, i don't like the idea of email customers as i think its a bit pushy, but i guess if they didn't want a newsletter they would have opted out.

Thanks again

 

[jellybabys]

Thanks Alice,

I know you can get clothing cheaper, i go to asdas myself but we are more of unique product site and we could never compete with mothercare and so on. But we do sell a lot of the other items cheaper than everyone else on the net, i keep up to date with all of our competitors and none still can beat us there.

Yes you are correct about the exclusive designs part, as again we can not beat the like of the big boys nor we would like to sell cheap imports, so we have a european company that makes clothes for babies and kids and they are something special but then so is the price, say one item cost us £18 then times that by 4 for stock then times that by 4 again for sizes that comes to £288.00 and that's for just one design/colour so you can see why this would cost us a bit..

 

[swsw]

Hi,

I agree, your site hits the spot. You're doing so many things rights.

If it was me, I'd focus on getting their contact details so you can send follow up offers to visitors. Get the sign up box up near the top. Your mindset should be something like 'get their contact details at all costs, oh and if they buy something, great that's a bonus, but I'll get their email address if it kills me.'

Offer something of real value to get them to sign up...offer of the week...really a free gift would do it if you could stretch that far. A printed catalogue of your best selling items...movies of babies wearing your clothes...I'm not sure, but something they'd be crazy not to want. Gift certificate maybe.

Tip, try and get babies birthday. and relationship of subscriber (eg mother, grandmother, friend) Then you can do special promotions to these groups.

Then send them a weekly offer, taking advantage of any seasonal holidays, mothers day, etc.

Generally you get 10x as many sales over time than you would on the first visit.

Oh, get rid of google adwords, they take people away from your site. add more testimonials, with real people and pictures.

Try and re-word your intro to get rid of the 'we', sounds too formal in my opinion.


All the best,

Steve

 

[stephendoyle]

hi dave,

i again wouldnt go with a new range just yet - work with what you have got.


i work off "i expand my business with the profit" i try not to loan or credit my way through as this makes you a little vulnerable.

you are in a competitive market however you are holding your won.

you know the "positioning" of your products in your market so make sure that your customers know the positioning of your company.

why are you different, what do you offer they dont, why should they buy from you - make it clear where you stand.

id be a little concerned that 2000 hits daily only equates to 15 orders a day.

i would do some research - wheres the traffic coming from, who are the customers, are they just price comparing why are they not buying.

as i said earlier hit them in the face so to speak with an offer for new customers or one that they cannot refuse.

also with a newsletter give advice on tips, new products, competitions etc so the customers who are hitting your website at least you are capturing some of their data to send the newsletters - you will be amazed how these will convert.

any help on sales, marketing or copy writing for sales just let me know.

Stephen Doyle

m: 07877658579
w: www.ccuk-ltd.com
e: [email protected]

Super Human Sales Training
& Killer Copy Writing

 

[jellybabys]

Thank steve,

I will take what you said on board...

Cheers

Dave

 

[jellybabys]

Hi Stephen,

My partner would love you but i know your right, grow with the business don't get in front of it.

As for the 2000 unique visitors, im not 100% sure how many search for the products, but i do have a name tool on the site and hundreds of advice pages that they visit so i expect i could easily half that 2000 at least, but its good to have them tools and advice pages as most are mums or mums to be and they can see what else we have on the site as they use the tools.

Thanks

Dave

 

[Alice3537]

"id be a little concerned that 2000 hits daily only equates to 15 orders a day.i would do some research - wheres the traffic coming from, who are the customers, are they just price comparing why are they not buying."



The OP has already said that "our biggest hit per month is baby clothes but we have very little on the site so get very little sales from that range"

Given that, I firmly believe that they need to source a new supplier and re-evaluate this section of the site.

People are telling them what they want, from the data re the hits.

I know of at least one UK supplier who will provide good quality clothing (primarily supplied to the Middle East) who will look at an order far smaller than the amount quoted.

 

[stephendoyle]

hi dave,

its not the amount of unique hits

its the conversion rate.

we all would love 100000 hits per day but its no good if the customer isnt buying.

you see its quality traffic not just traffic that counts.

its no good if they are looking for sweets and hitting your website as they would never buy.

is it the products,
prices,
competition,

if your happy with the keywords and phrases that they are searching to get to your site then the special offer 3 for 2 -something they cannot refuse and least of all get tehm to register to send newsletter with direct marketing agendas

i still run websites and pride myself on the normal conversion rates 1 to 2 % i have them at 12 to 15% although some dont get the traffic you do.

if i can help just pm me.

Stephen Doyle

m: 07877658579
w: www.ccuk-ltd.com
e: [email protected]

Super Human Sales Training
& Killer Copy Writing

 

[stephendoyle]

hi alice,

got to disagree though

i think that baby clothes is too generic

its maybe capturing data or hits but not the quality needed.

as i have said i wouldnt expand or change just yet until i have revaluated everything first.

Stephen Doyle

m: 07877658579
w: www.ccuk-ltd.com
e: [email protected]

Super Human Sales Training
& Killer Copy Writing

 

[Alice3537]

hi alice,

got to disagree though

i think that baby clothes is too generic

its maybe capturing data or hits but not the quality needed.

as i have said i wouldnt expand or change just yet until i have revaluated everything first.

Stephen Doyle

m: 07877658579
w: www.ccuk-ltd.com
e: [email protected]

Super Human Sales Training
& Killer Copy Writing

Do you? I was thinking just one or two more ranges might help - not a saturation of the site or anything, but an addition to what is there? Or a re-evaluation of the ranges offered? Not a massive influx of ranges, but an expansion to gage whether or not the hits convert to sales.

 

[stephendoyle]

hi alice,

yes thats spot on - nothing wrong with checking other suppliers to get better deals or discounts

i was coming more from the hits per day to order ratio.

i had the same problem with a product and traffic was great but too general and costly!

think your advice has been spot on though

 

[Alice3537]

hi alice,

yes thats spot on - nothing wrong with checking other suppliers to get better deals or discounts

i was coming more from the hits per day to order ratio.

i had the same problem with a product and traffic was great but too general and costly!

think your advice has been spot on though

Oops, we came from different angles, I guess!

What did you do to resolve your 'problem'?

 

[Adam H]

I've not had the chance to read the rest of the posts but put some cheaper products on the homepage, ones that people will see instantly, rather than a big chunk of text that people will turn off when they see it.