Website Design? Boosting Sales?

[Deleted member 120672]

Hi, we recently launched an online boutique for shabby chic gifts and unique jewellery. Before Christmas we were making a few sales but since it's totally flatlined. I believe we have a good looking site, nice (but small) product ranges and helpful pages.

Can anyone give us advice on why we're not converting customers? It's super low at 0.01% and majority of people that find us through search type for a specific product such as 'red book ends' which we do have in stock. Any tips for a business beginner? All help would be super appreciated and we're not sure what we're missing...

Our website is called Rapunzel's Retreat.

 

[Josh_Farmer]

Site looks quite nice, not sure if there is a little to much white going on.

It really leads my eyes away from the page and stops me concentrating fully on what your selling

 

[Deleted member 120672]

Site looks quite nice, not sure if there is a little to much white going on.

It really leads my eyes away from the page and stops me concentrating fully on what your selling

So pleased you said that. I've been telling my partner that we need some kind of background but he's a bit of a fan of white space. Thank you for this...one of the points I was wondering about myself.

 

[Josh_Farmer]

I like white space, i just think there is to much there, or the site needs to be responsive and adjust according to the browsers width ect.

 

[AshleyWhiteBusiness]

Make you site more interactive to your cutomers.

 

[Deleted member 120672]

Make you site more interactive to your cutomers.

Hi, thanks for this...can I ask in what way?

 

[AndyP]

I tend to disagree on the white. I like that aspect, two sets of whizzing image sets on your homepage are too much though (IMO). But, thats just your homepage and realistically how many people actually land there? Overall I like the site. You come up in product searches on google so it seems like you have that under control and your page meta detail seems OK. Where are you losing visitors? I assume that you use analytics. Are you getting high cart abandonment? If so, look at trends to see what, where and why customers abandon. I suspect, however, that this is more about your product offering. You don't really sell anything that is a must-have. It's all nice enough but quite gifty, nothing that you really need to live day to day. Gift and accessories sites have huge competition, its a bad economic time, its also the worst quarter of the year generally. Your returns info is sadly lacking and people like to know about this. How many people visit your returns page? Think about offering free shipping. Customers like this. Whilst your checkout is secure a static image in your footer isn't really good enough. get yourself a real verification seal that customers can click through for independent verification. Every little helps. I suspect however that this is more about your product range and the economic climate.

 

[WebWrappedUp]

Hi there, the thing that sticks out to me most is maybe your missing putting a telephone number on the front page. Straight away then people will know they can contact you easily.

And yes, the 2 moving images on front pages is a bit too much for me.

 

[davek17]

There's nothing that stands out to me on the design of the website, other than the contact details. None has mentioned visitors though...

How many people are coming to your site? Do you use Google Analystics or monitor your website at all? What are the best pages, have these seen changes since the purchases dropped? Its all about tweaks and clues with ecommerce now!

You see the reason why this is important is that you need to sort out if the problem is lack of visitors or lack of conversion. Until you sort this out you don;t know where the problem is.

Also if you had good sales and then nothing, the first places I would look are to any marketing that might have goine missing (SEO and google ads immediately spring to mind) or is there somehting broken with the cart/payments section?

 

[Deleted member 120672]

Thanks for this. Click-through on the returns is 0.3%. I can't believe I hadn't noticed it links to the customer login returns request page - complete error on our part! Better sort that one out. We do have a returns policy but it's in the Terms and Conditions and Delivery pages. Sadly we don't offer free because postage costs are so high - really wish we could offer it as I like shopping where there's free delivery and returns.

Yeah, making the second promo static might help. We get very little click-through on it at the moment anyway. As for cart abandonment I'd say it's 25% but not many are getting that far.

We're keen to add more products to our range and change our position from home gifts to something else that works better online - we feel these things are quite tactile and are often bought in the high street.

As a sideline question what are your 'must buy' items? Otherwise what are your business websites? I'd be interested to know to see how your homepage layout and pages are set out.

 

[Deleted member 120672]

There's nothing that stands out to me on the design of the website, other than the contact details. None has mentioned visitors though...

How many people are coming to your site? Do you use Google Analystics or monitor your website at all? What are the best pages, have these seen changes since the purchases dropped? Its all about tweaks and clues with ecommerce now!

You see the reason why this is important is that you need to sort out if the problem is lack of visitors or lack of conversion. Until you sort this out you don;t know where the problem is.

Also if you had good sales and then nothing, the first places I would look are to any marketing that might have goine missing (SEO and google ads immediately spring to mind) or is there somehting broken with the cart/payments section?

Hi, We average 30-40 visitors a day (have no idea if that's near high enough for a small site that launched 4 months ago?). We really utilise google analytics and have started in the last fortnight to SEO each individual page to get around 4% on our targeted keywords like 'wearable art' and 'art jewellery'. We hover around position 49 on google for 'shabby chic accessories' etc. but aren't making a lot of headway to get higher up. Any clues?? We're well aware that but being in position 1-3 is where it's at for a search term.

We had good pre-christmas sales considering we'd just launched but we have had a site re-design to pare it down, make it look more modern, younger and fresher...before it had large homey images of our products; pillows and cream roses etc but we put down the better sales volume to being 'pre-christmas'...

Our cart does work fine, we did check that out though we only offer paypal currently. I'm hoping to add both googlecart and amazon payments to offer extra options for customers.

 

Wrong products,wrong prices.

Can't think of any other reason for a low conversion rate.?:|

Earl

 

[Deleted member 120672]

I tend to disagree on the white. I like that aspect, two sets of whizzing image sets on your homepage are too much though (IMO). But, thats just your homepage and realistically how many people actually land there? Overall I like the site. You come up in product searches on google so it seems like you have that under control and your page meta detail seems OK. Where are you losing visitors? I assume that you use analytics. Are you getting high cart abandonment? If so, look at trends to see what, where and why customers abandon. I suspect, however, that this is more about your product offering. You don't really sell anything that is a must-have. It's all nice enough but quite gifty, nothing that you really need to live day to day. Gift and accessories sites have huge competition, its a bad economic time, its also the worst quarter of the year generally. Your returns info is sadly lacking and people like to know about this. How many people visit your returns page? Think about offering free shipping. Customers like this. Whilst your checkout is secure a static image in your footer isn't really good enough. get yourself a real verification seal that customers can click through for independent verification. Every little helps. I suspect however that this is more about your product range and the economic climate.

Site seals tend to be pretty expensive though for the good ones. I remember researching it a while back and couldn't justify the £500 price mark for a little bit of extra customer trust when the https shows we have an SSL cert. Do you know of any seals that are a decent price for starter businesses? Thanks

 

[AndyP]

Site seals tend to be pretty expensive though for the good ones. I remember researching it a while back and couldn't justify the £500 price mark for a little bit of extra customer trust when the https shows we have an SSL cert. Do you know of any seals that are a decent price for starter businesses? Thanks

Take a look at Geotrust http://www.geotrust.com/ssl/ the QuickSSL® Premium would be my suggestion

 

Site seals tend to be pretty expensive though for the good ones.

Waste of time and money 99% of the public do not know what they are in any case.

Better to build a brand or plenty of testimonials on the site.IMHO


Earl

 

[HTMLHugo]

site looks good.

However the 2 scrolling / changing bits were really oddly messing with my eyes.

Id consider setting the bottom one to a manual scroll and slowing the top one down a tad.

 

[AndyP]

Waste of time and money 99% of the public do not know what they are in any case.

Better to build a brand or plenty of testimonials on the site.IMHO


Earl

Earl. I appreciate that you are an expert in just about everything & your terse one liners are your trademark and I also appreciate that a seal will not, on its own, create the perfect website but there is no doubt that things like this do help. I think you underestimate how savvy online buyers have and are becoming. But what do I know. As usual we'll all bow to your superior knowledge. What's your website URL? It would be interesting to see as I am sure that we could all learn a few things.

 

[fisicx]

...I also appreciate that a seal will not, on its own, create the perfect website but there is no doubt that things like this do help.

Nope.

People don't take any notice of them. Testimonials however on the product page do make a difference as does a well written description full of incentives to buy, local phone number, address and email.

 

Earl. I appreciate that you are an expert in just about everything & your terse one liners are your trademark and I also appreciate that a seal will not, on its own, create the perfect website but there is no doubt that things like this do help. I think you underestimate how savvy online buyers have and are becoming. But what do I know. As usual we'll all bow to your superior knowledge.

Why thank you Andy.

Another convert in the bag.

The question is do they help enough to cover the silly money these people of ill repute are asking ( most being self proclaimed authorities )?

I supect a very large company may gain a very small benefit ,but in my experience trust comes from how you deal with customers.


Earl

 

[Digital Investments]

Where did your sales come from when you first launched in December? Friends and family?

You really want to let your analytic numbers drive your decisions. You may also wana try using visual heat maps to help you understand what your customers are doing on specific pages of your site and why the conversion is low. Don't worry though, with your immediate grasp of analytics and uptake and implementation of internet marketing makes you well on the right track. Keep it up!

 

[paretowasright]

Hi,

I echo most of the great advice that has been given.
The one thing I wanted to add was have you looked at the keyword volumes that you are targetting?. I have not looked any of them up but something tells me avant garde jewellery and shabby chic accessories won't have 100+ searches a day.

 

[AndyP]

Why thank you Andy.

Another convert in the bag.

The question is do they help enough to cover the silly money these people of ill repute are asking ( most being self proclaimed authorities )?

I supect a very large company may gain a very small benefit ,but in my experience trust comes from how you deal with customers.


Earl

...and strangely that all important URL is still missing.

So lets be clear. You and fisicx both refute the value of customer confidence building. OK. It's an opinion.

 

[cmcp]

I recall once having a conversation with someone in UX&C who cited some increased measure of trust by placing any kind of padlock in the content of secure sites.

Of course I have nothing to reference, but my claim's still no wilder than any other claim so far

 

...and strangely that all important URL is still missing.

So lets be clear. You and fisicx both refute the value of customer confidence building. OK. It's an opinion.

cheap ones here:

https://www.geocerts.com/

you want a URL?

Have a bit of faith.

Earl

 

[Tin]

Please can I ask everyone to keep this specific to advice on conversions and steer clear of an actual site review.

Ray

 

[S-Marketing]

Please can I ask everyone to keep this specific to advice on conversions and steer clear of an actual site review.

Ray

You can ask. Not sure it will make much difference though

 

[CarAirFresh]

Hoping I can help here...

I actually really like the look of your website. IMO white space isn't the problem. White space actually reduces clutter, gets to the point and stops visitors eyes from wondering. It makes it easy on the eye too. My website performs well and there's plenty of clean lines and white space.

I agree on the comments reg. the sliders. They slide in different directions for one (don't like it) and they both scroll automatically. How am I supposed to watch them both?

As someone has already mentioned. Have the top one auto-scrolling, the bottom one manual.

There needs to be an option so that when I hover over the auto-scroll banner it stops until my cursor leaves it. It makes it easier for people to read comfortably without rushing and ensures that what they could be interested in isn't missed.

When I click on a particular item on the top slider, I'm expecting it to go to that actual item. It isn't. As a result, It's a big turn off...

OK, you say your conversion is poor but rather than taking a guess (some very good ones) isn't it much better to in fact find out the real reasons why?

Some questions for you to ask yourself...
Are people adding products to cart, getting right to the checkout and then changing their minds their? If they are, why? (postage charges, checkout options, lack of contact info etc)

I track my customers in real time using live traffic monitoring software. I can then watch a visitor as they browse the site as if I was sitting next to their computer.

When people visit your home page, where are the clicking? Which parts of the page is getting the most exposure? You can find the answer to these questions by using a tool called CrazyEgg (heat mapping) we swear by it. It allows you to see exactly where customers are clicking, how they scroll and more on each page of your site!

It answers a lot of otherwise unanswered questions

 

[Salt & Paper]

The site looks nice, but as others have said, the scrolling is distracting.

If I were you, I would add Clicky and Mouseflow and see what your users are really doing when they hit your site.

One very important thing we have realised is that a LOT of people look for contact details, or info on where you are based, and I can't see an 'About Us' page or similar there. If I were you I would get this on the first page right at the top somewhere.

 

[Jack Clark]

There are a lot of reasons your site doesn't convert.

#1 - The page load speed is too slow. Amazon did a study that found for every extra 0.1 seconds spent loading their pages, revenues decreased 1%. I think your site needs to be faster.

#2 - The checkout process is horrible (no offense) - Never get customers to register before they enter their details. Try to cut the checkout process down and ask for only the details you need. If you really, really, really want customers to register, then make them do it after they have filled in all of their details. You will still lose some people this way, but a lot more people will stay, because they have pyschologically committed to buying from you once they have entered their details. People hate to waste time and feel like they made a bad choice, so they are much more likely to comply with your instructions once you have got some form of committment.

#3 - It is hard to tell when you've successfully added something to your cart. There needs to be a little popup or something that confirms you added something to the cart. I know that you have something that appears above the main content of the page, but this does not stand out enough and I missed it the first time I click the order button, which lead to me clicking it again and then realising I had put too many in the cart.

#4 - No trust signals - There are no prominent "trust signals" on the page that instantly reassure me that the site is legit.

and many more....

Hopefully this helps,

I like to think I know what I'm talking about because I run a conversion rate optimisation and SEO business.

BTW: All of this is meant to be constructive criticism. Please don't take any of this personally. (always helps to say this from past experience)

Feel free to ask more questions,

Jack

 

I like to think I know what I'm talking about because I run a conversion rate optimisation and SEO business.

Would that be The Link Building Company?:|

Earl

 

[Jack Clark]

Yes. We specialise in Link building, SEO and conversion rate optimisation. The Link Building Company is a very new company, as I previously took clients on through a different legal entity (sole trader) via a different channel.

 

[mobyme]

Take a look at livelaughlove and compare it to your site and I think it will become apparent where your going wrong.

 

[Deleted member 136029]

Take a look at livelaughlove and compare it to your site and I think it will become apparent where your going wrong.

That's a bit harsh. I much prefer the OP's site to the livelaughlove one.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Can anyone give us advice on why we're not converting customers? It's super low at 0.01%

If it's that low, then the list of possible reasons is pretty short. It'll be one of the following:

1. The wrong visitors
2. Unattractive products/prices
3. A serious trust issue with the site
4. A serious usability issue that's stopping people completing a purchase

These are fairly easy to narrow down if you have google analytics.

 

[Esk247]

As said take time to analyse the product page more using your analytics package.

There isn't much point in making wholesale changes to your entire website until you know what is causing the lack of conversion from visitor to customer.

Tip: Don't take everyones suggestions for website design and colour schemes as gospel on here, you'll end up going round in circles. Some people like the colour pink, others like the colour blue, it is all personal taste.

 

[a1anm]

It would appear as if you site has been hacked

https://skitch.com/a1anm/8ttea/hacked-by-qlq-tabuk-hacker

 

[mobyme]

That's a bit harsh. I much prefer the OP's site to the livelaughlove one.

Nothing whatsoever to do with my opinion of either site; one is doing it properly and the other isn't so if you put in the term "shabby chic" guess which one you will get to see?

edit: It's been hacked since I last posted which is hardly surprising as the only thing missing was a "hack me" sign.

 

[Jeff FV]

It would appear as if you site has been hacked

https://skitch.com/a1anm/8ttea/hacked-by-qlq-tabuk-hacker

edit: It's been hacked since I last posted which is hardly surprising as the only thing missing was a "hack me" sign.

I looked at the site yesterday (Sunday) evening and it was fine (i.e. not hacked) and now this morning (Monday) it has been hacked as reported above.

Can anyone suggest how it would have been hacked?

@mobyme you say: "... the only thing missing was a 'hack me' sign ..." - can you elaborate? What made you think this site was susceptible to hacking?

I ask so that I can learn, and in doing so, make sure my sites are not vulnerable.

Plus, I'm sure, the OP is now tearing their hair out trying to sort out the problem - any advice members could give them would, I'm sure, be of help.

Many thanks

Jeff

 

[a1anm]

I haven't had any experience of hacking but the first thing I would do is contact my host and find if they know how it happened. If so fix the problem and restore from a backup.

It may also be a good idea to change your passwords as well (cpanel, ftp, magento admin panel etc).

Hopefully someone a little more knowledgeable can offer more concrete advice.

I'm also not too sure how it would have been an obvious traget. I looked at the site prior to it getting hacked and seem to recall it was running Magento which shouldn't have any glaring problems as lots of shops run this (including me). However, it may not have been installed correctly, incorrect file permissions, not been up to date, had weak passwords or a security problem with their host.

 

[Lorna1]

It appears only the homepage has been hacked. If you click on a link to another page from Google, you can access the shop.

I never really understand why people hack sites anyway. There shouldn't be any credit/debit card info in the back office.

EDIT: Also, why has the hacker put his/her email address on the homepage?