Why No Sales? Help!

[LaBella London]

Hi all, like many of you I've taken the leap and started my own business. As a 23 year old woman this was a big decision for me particularly having a relatively stable job with a major retail fashion company. I assummed my background is in retail fashion (Management) would be a perfect match for an online fashion jewellery store however I have had almost no sales over the past 3 months...

I am marketing like hell, with google shopping, bing ads, facebook ads and I'm active for several hours a day on Facebook/Twitter/Polyvore/Pinterest/Instagram etc. which generates approx 80-100 visitors a day, but still no sales???

My stock is similar to whats being sold on other sites and my prices are competitive or cheaper in a lot of cases.

The only thing I can assume is it's my website layout/design? I've had the functionallity checked so I know the sales process work ok, so now I'm at a complete loss.

My friends and family all tell me the website looks very professional and "trustworthy" and they wouldn't hesitate to buy from there... but their obviously bias and would tell me that anyway!

So would some of you be kind enough to have a look at my website at labellalondon.com and tell me what you think and PLEASE BE HONEST!

Any help or advice would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance,

Aleisha

 

[jacobc]

Hi Aleisha,

<< Removed by Mod. Website reviews are only available to full members.>>100 visitors a day is not very many however, a lot of ecommerce sites may only get a few percent conversion rate. Having no sales however is a bit weird. The site is a tad slow but nothing major.

Have you put something like google analytics on the site so you can see where people are dropping off? Have you put through a few test orders to check it is all 100% working? Have you had any enquiries at all?

Regards,

Jacob

 

[finleydesign]

Hi all, like many of you I've taken the leap and started my own business. As a 23 year old woman this was a big decision for me particularly having a relatively stable job with a major retail fashion company. I assummed my background is in retail fashion (Management) would be a perfect match for an online fashion jewellery store however I have had almost no sales over the past 3 months...

That could be your first mistake, why would it be that easy to generate what could be deemed a large number of sale within the first 3 months of a site going live, Ecommerce is a very progressive area, and unless you have very very deep pockets getting sales and income quickly is often very tricky and often sometimes down to luck

I am marketing like hell, with google shopping, bing ads, facebook ads and I'm active for several hours a day on Facebook/Twitter/Polyvore/Pinterest/Instagram etc. which generates approx 80-100 visitors a day, but still no sales???

How are you analyzing your visitors, you could be aiming to have 1000 a day, if no ones buying the number of visitors can mean very little, its not about visitors, its about conversions

My stock is similar to whats being sold on other sites and my prices are competitive or cheaper in a lot of cases.

Do you have a USP then? often price isn't always it

My friends and family all tell me the website looks very professional and "trustworthy" and they wouldn't hesitate to buy from there... but their obviously bias and would tell me that anyway!

Yep another mistake but I think you know, they will all tell you what you want to hear, even if you ask them to be honest, they would review it with a biased approach

So would some of you be kind enough to have a look at my website at labellalondon.com and tell me what you think and PLEASE BE HONEST!

Often these can be I am sorry to say down to the owners coming from the wrong direction, making assumptions it's easy, Ecommerce is extremely competitive, your website is clean, and presents the products well, but I think it's very early days to start wondering why no one is buying

Can I ask why you didn't run this part time, this seems to be often the best approach an number of our clients have done, they work part time, or sort orders in their lunch time and when it gets to a point where its generating enough money to leave, they quit

Don't wish too sound like a party pooper, but you may have jumped into this feet first with no real idea on how to make ecommerce a success, or may have the wrong attitude in assuming it will work

Don't want to knock you and good on you for giving this a go, but you are at that point where you need to ask some other questions I suppose

 

[FutureM]

If you haven't already, install google analytics and see what people do when they arrive at the site. Personally think the design and usability of the site looks okay.. didn't look at the shopping cart but if you force people to sign up in order to make a purchase this may put some people off, we noticed a decent increase in sales when we omitted the sign up. Also, if you can, put the phone number in the header section... a number and address will always add to buyer confidence.

It can be frustrating, but your at the right age to be giving it a go, I'm the same age. Most of my sales come from PPC on google, especially in the early days. I also have products on ebay which helped with cashflow in the beginning, not sure if that will work for your products but worth considering.

 

[LaBella London]

That could be your first mistake, why would it be that easy to generate what could be deemed a large number of sale within the first 3 months of a site going live, Ecommerce is a very progressive area, and unless you have very very deep pockets getting sales and income quickly is often very tricky and often sometimes down to luck

Firstly I never assumed it would be easy, but I did project a few more sales than I'm getting sales during this time.

How are you analyzing your visitors, you could be aiming to have 1000 a day, if no ones buying the number of visitors can mean very little, its not about visitors, its about conversions

I projected a conversion of approx 0.5% which based on my visitors equates to around 45 sales I've not had anywhere near that.

Often these can be I am sorry to say down to the owners coming from the wrong direction, making assumptions it's easy, Ecommerce is extremely competitive, your website is clean, and presents the products well, but I think it's very early days to start wondering why no one is buying

That seems like an odd bit of advice! I should absolutely be asking why no one is buying, every day! If it hasn't worked for three months then is it likely to work in 6 or 12. I understand that e-commerce is progressive, but that implies progression, I'm seeing none!

Can I ask why you didn't run this part time, this seems to be often the best approach an number of our clients have done, they work part time, or sort orders in their lunch time and when it gets to a point where its generating enough money to leave, they quit

The terms of my employment contract would not allow it, even on a casual basis. I worked for a major fashion company, this was a definite no-no!

Don't wish too sound like a party pooper, but you may have jumped into this feet first with no real idea on how to make ecommerce a success, or may have the wrong attitude in assuming it will work

No I appreciate your honesty, however I never ASSUMED it would work, but based on my projections I CALCULATED I would have achieved more conversions than I have. I am admittedly an eternal optimist, but I'm also a realist.

Thanks for taking the time, I really do appreciate it.

 

[MarkHopkins]

My friends and family all tell me the website looks very professional and "trustworthy" and they wouldn't hesitate to buy from there... but their obviously bias and would tell me that anyway!

One trick for getting honest answers out of friends/family is to ask them for the "one thing" that they would change/improve.

That will usually draw a useful response out.

 

[finleydesign]

Hi, Yep I get your points you raised, all I am saying is starting a new business is so tough and 1 in 3 businesses will fail, it's my own belief often these fail because business are trying to be built on assumptions, optimism and incorrect or over inflated calculations.

By asking the question "why no sales" is the first major red light in my opinion, if you don't know, why should anyone else, it's your business, you should know everything, diversify, adapt, create USP, understand your customer, know how and why they buy.

You say you don't assume, but I am afraid in your first post it's very clear you do, and PLEASE believe me I'm not having a pop, I often find a different approach to business can then start making you focus on the areas you should be

 

[LaBella London]

Hi, Yep I get your points you raised, all I am saying is starting a new business is so tough and 1 in 3 businesses will fail, it's my own belief often these fail because business are trying to be built on assumptions, optimism and incorrect or over inflated calculations.

By asking the question "why no sales" is the first major red light in my opinion, if you don't know, why should anyone else, it's your business, you should know everything, diversify, adapt, create USP, understand your customer, know how and why they buy.

You say you don't assume, but I am afraid in your first post it's very clear you do, and PLEASE believe me I'm not having a pop, I often find a different approach to business can then start making you focus on the areas you should be

Yes, I fully appreciate where you are coming from and believe me when I say I get similar from my father on a daily basis (he's been in business for 30+ years).

Perhaps my post was a little too simplistic, but my objective was to elicit as much response as possible. I am confident I do know everything about my business, and the lack of sales this early on is anticipated (albeit i've now revised my projections for the next quarter).

As this has been a solo endeavour, one can very often wear rose tinted glasses, my post was an attempt to determine if there was a gorilla in the room that I had missed!

Thanks again for taking the time.

 

[Deleted member 106254]

A couple of things that I noticed whilst trying out your site:

<< Removed by Mod. Website reviews are only available to full members.>>

 

[finleydesign]

Lol I bet you don't need that from your Father!!!!

<< Removed by Mod. Website reviews are only available to full members.>>

Step back and start asking a few questions

1 What problem are you solving for your customers?? Odd question I know but it starts making you think, what do they want, why do they want it, what is it they are going to need it for

Assuming someone wants a necklace and just need to fall onto your site is not enough

How unique is your product, again is this rose tinted glasses, are you just assuming because you like it everyone else will?

2. Whats my USP, what can I do, what would I want and actually what has made me buy, was it the option to return?? a major attraction sometimes, especially in fashion people like to see it in the flesh a picture (unless it's on a model) is often not enough

Can I offer something different, can I offer a combination discount for necklace and bracelet combination

Can I suggest people send a photo of themselves and we accessories their outfit for them! ( i am just thinking out loud) etc etc

And so on, but basically you need this mentality rather than asking a forum "why no sales" or it maybe a grim future, this is going to be tough, no one is going to hand sales to you, go and get them

 

[Jeff FV]

Please note:

Website reviews are only available to full members.

The circa £40 membership entitles you to ask for a website review from other members of the forum and represents excellent value for money for this feature alone.

 

[LaBella London]

Please note:

Website reviews are only available to full members.

The circa £40 membership entitles you to ask for a website review from other members of the forum and represents excellent value for money for this feature alone.

My apologies I genuinely did not realise this subject was off limits.

 

[Hunting Solutions]

I always worry when I can find no contact address or phone number on an ecommerce site....it should always be easy to find.

 

[antropy]

Hi all, like many of you I've taken the leap and started my own business. As a 23 year old woman this was a big decision for me particularly having a relatively stable job with a major retail fashion company.

Hi Aleisha, well done, it's not an easy decision to make.

I have had almost no sales over the past 3 months...

That is a little surprising!

I am marketing like hell, with google shopping, bing ads, facebook ads and I'm active for several hours a day on Facebook/Twitter/Polyvore/Pinterest/Instagram etc. which generates approx 80-100 visitors a day, but still no sales???

Do you also sell on eBay? You might think it's a place where people sell low quality stuff for ridiculously low prices but it's also a great place to test the market and get your pricing right.

My stock is similar to whats being sold on other sites and my prices are competitive or cheaper in a lot of cases.

Ecommerce is all about trust, while I'm not allowed to comment on your site specifically there are lots of factors that increase trust such as a phone number, an address, the green padlock in the address bar ...

The only thing I can assume is it's my website layout/design?

I would recommend becoming a full member of this forum as others have said but hopefully it's not going too far to say I've seen a lot of websites in my time and the design and layout of yours is better than a lot that do sell.

From your posts it sounds like you're very realistic and you're doing all the right things. As I mentioned above, do a few things to increase trust. I saw a couple of people mentioned the speed of the site - it was also the first thing I noticed. It does run very slowly and pages take ages to load. Can I ask what platform you're using? Is it Magento by any chance? Amazon have done a lot of research and found that each extra second of page load time reduces sales by a significant amount.

It might also be worth having a read of the marketing section of this short eBook I wrote:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-Your-Retail-Business-Online-ebook/dp/B00REHJHO2

I'm happy to send anyone from this forum a free PDF copy if they email me, [email protected]

 

[japancool]

Aleisha,

You know your market better than I do, so take what I'm about to say with a heavy dose of salt.

I don't think the site is the issue, per se.

You may be getting 100 visitors a day, but WHO are those visitors? Are they the kind of people who are going to buy your products?

To me, there is a discord between the image your site projects and the products you're selling. The look and feel of your site says high fashion, the products you sell scream cheap tat. Now, I don't buy jewellery but, for example, I look at the picture of the model on the bracelets page, and I really don't expect her to be wearing £5.99 bangles.

Price isn't everything. It's about the perception of value. If your goods are cheap, people will view them as cheap.

My suggestion - create a premium category of a few higher priced products, actively promote them on the home page and all your advertising channels and see if they sell any better.

 

[Raw Rob]

To me, there is a discord between the image your site projects and the products you're selling. The look and feel of your site says high fashion, the products you sell scream cheap tat. Now, I don't buy jewellery but, for example, I look at the picture of the model on the bracelets page, and I really don't expect her to be wearing £5.99 bangles.

Price isn't everything. It's about the perception of value. If your goods are cheap, people will view them as cheap.

I thought exactly this when I looked at the site (although I didn't manage to understand and put it into words like Mr Cool did). Now I personally wouldn't want to buy anything on your site, (just not my style ), but I was shocked when I saw how cheap everything was, which led me to think that everything must be poor quality. (Doesn't mean it is, but that was my thought process.)

 

[Jayser100]

It surprises me that in this day and age, anyone still thinks they can just launch a website with the same products loads of other retailers sell, and just expect the money to start rolling in. Social media doesn't bring loads of sales. You would need thousands of followers to make it effective. There is no middle ground with social media - either you throw everything at it, or you don't bother because anything else is basically a waste of time.

Google ads are also hard work as you just end up spending money to try and get near other advertisers. It is really, really hard to push your head above the parapet with this type of business and make it work because there is an awful lot of competition out there. If they already have the prime positions on Google search, it isn't going to be easy to get anywhere near them and if you do, they are likely to respond by upping their game.

My advice would be, if you can afford it, get your own jewellery line and sell it hard on eBay and Amazon as well as your own website. Do your keyword research first, and find an angle, a niche you can go at with your creations. I am sorry my post is negative but it isn't going to help if we're not honest with you. Good luck

 

[AllUpHere]

Japancool and Raw Rob have got closest to your real problem.

The mistake you have made (which is incredibly common) is that you think you are marketing, when you aren't. You mentioned in your opening post that you are 'marketing like hell', when in fact what you are doing is trying to promote a business that is fundamentally flawed due to a lack of marketing understanding.

This business isn't going to make you an income in it's current form. To make improvements you are going to need to spend money on professional advice. There is little point having a site review at this stage, as the business behind the site has flaws that are always going to have a detrimental impact on the performance of the site.

Edit, Jayser100 (above) also makes some good points.

 

[japancool]

Social media doesn't bring loads of sales. You would need thousands of followers to make it effective. There is no middle ground with social media - either you throw everything at it, or you don't bother because anything else is basically a waste of time.

Sorry, but that's not entirely true. Social media advertising - or at least Facebook advertising - allows you to target your customers very specifically, but you need to make sure you are targeting the right customers. It does not need a huge budget if you do it right and you have a product suitable for social media, which jewellery is.

 

[MOIC]

Selling unbranded jewellery on its own on a jewellery only website is a tough ask.

You must create your brand first and this will take time and money.

Most unbranded jewellery online is sold via clothing websites where jewellery is the accessory part, not the main item and customers are viewing the site because of its brand that they relate to.

You need to rethink your strategy and I suggest building a brand first, then developing your jewelery that has your brand on as well as labelling, packaging etc etc.

The site looks good, but without a brand it looks lost.

Certainly do not get too despondent at this stage, 3 months creating a business is nothing.

Take on board what has been said so far and you will slowly start to build your business and confidence.

Good luck!

 

[japancool]

The other thing is that the jewellery looks fairly generic to me. There's nothing to distinguish it from any other cheap jewellery. The designs are unremarkable. There needs to be something special about it, perhaps a theme or catering to a specific fashion niche.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Perfect site with good images only lacking clear contact information on the home page and being only paypal does not always help

The goods as others have said are trinkets i imagine girls would buy on impulse when they buy a new dress etc not something you would bother to fill in forms for and wait for,

I think Ebay is more suitable for this type of goods as there are so few marketing tools available with such low value goods

Try selling a quarter of the site in the front with £20-50 goods and move the rest into their own section as costume jewellery

You have proved it is not working so time to change things around in a constructive way, by that i mean take the goods upmarket and imagine the costume stuff as add on sales

 

[Prettycool]

You said in your thread that other sites are "selling the same item" how do you know that they are selling? some may have other outlets, i.e. a b.m. shop, market stall, parties or other. One thing I've learnt is do not get paranoid on what other people say they a doing, it more than likely is a load of bull!

Good luck with your new venture and keep doing what you are doing at this moment, it takes a long time to get there for little reward.

 

[Amy@ Filplastic- Racking]

Hi Aleisha,

I'm a marketing manager for a successful storage company, but more importantly I'm your target market, and I have to say I have a very different opinion to some of the comments you've had.

As I type I have on a huge flower necklace I bought in New Look for £15, I snapped it up a few weeks ago because you don't usually see much stuff like that on the high street. I'm now drooling after looking at your website! The product range looks fab, the prices look spot on and the ultra low carriage is very appealing.

Have you tried with bloggers? We had a new range of outdoor plastic cupboards, and I wasn't sure where to push them and contacted a garden blog, offered 2 cupboards for them to give away as a competition prize and we had loads of entries, sales and website hits. I imagine there are loads of fashion bloggers, but if you can identify the best blogs, give some jewellery away for free as a competition prize, or send the blogger free stuff to review, this may help.

<removed>

Anyway good luck with everything, something will work sooner or later. As soon as you get a few customer reviews under your belt, splash them on every page, as customer reviews are really what make the difference with unknown sites. It proves you get the stuff, and that the quality is ok.

 

[kulture]

Guys, no site reviews please..

 

[silentjay]

Selling generic Chinese jewellery you can get off ebay cheaper is going to be a hard sell. A nice looking website isn't going to do a thing. Unless you have massive amounts of free traffic from SEO or can somehow make a paid advertising campaign work, the latter I think you'd really struggle with any ROI.

Have you thought about selling at a market? I know someone who did this and made a killing selling cheap jewellery until they got so big they went into wholesale.

Alternatively if you want to stick with online you'd really need to build a brand and maybe even your own product line.

 

[SiBales]

Hi Aleisha,

I hope you're doing well today!

I have recently started a new company too (my third!)

I am building partnerships to build income but also to utilise their established networks/connections and asking them to promote me via them

I have also instructed a PR agency who is working with us on a launch piece and a 12 month comms strategy

I have the usual SM activity, and although its valuable, its a slow burn and i dont have any expectations in any early results, but long term brand and reach.

I am constantly analysising where people are engaging with us on the site, and changing things in terms of content and design, and i am always asking lots of questions to our target market at exhibitions and on the phone

Trade show and exhibitions are really important, and something you could build your brand and awareness?

Listing on established marketplaces, networks, partnering and joint ventures can be great

Creating a grabbable (im doing this at the mo with a brand consultant) that i can run across all of my networks, using infographics, pr and partner advertising opps.

There is SO much to do when you run a startup. It can be lonely and hard. But you're doing it - dont loose the faith, forget about the failure stats and work really really hard and you will get there.

I built a company from my bedroom to a £1.3M t/o company in 7 years. You can do this too.

All the best

Si

 

[japancool]

The OP hasn't been back recently - perhaps business is going well!

 

[AllUpHere]

The OP hasn't been back recently - perhaps business is going well!

Or our posts on this thread shattered the dream, and made the OP realise she has made a mistake.

 

[japancool]

Or our posts on this thread shattered the dream, and made the OP realise she has made a mistake.

Do you think we were too harsh?

 

[AllUpHere]

Do you think we were too harsh?

No not at all.

I can, however, imagine the sinking feeling the OP must have felt as she read through our posts. To give up full time employment under the belief that her website would give her a full time wage was a little naive, but I think we have all had an idea that we had persuaded ourselves was 'the one', only to find we may have been a little off with our calculations.

 

[japancool]

No not at all.

I can, however, imagine the sinking feeling the OP must have felt as she read through our posts. To give up full time employment under the belief that her website would give her a full time wage was a little naive, but I think we have all had an idea that we had persuaded ourselves was 'the one', only to find we may have been a little off with our calculations.

I agree, but I don't think all is lost by any means. I strongly believe that you can sell pretty much anything, if it's done in the right way at the right price point.

 

[AllUpHere]

I agree, but I don't think all is lost by any means. I strongly believe that you can sell pretty much anything, if it's done in the right way at the right price point.

I agree, it's a nice looking site. The business behind the site needs a bit of work though. I just can't help thinking that the OP would run out of money before she got it to a position in which it could fund itself (and her).

 

[Cherrie Hub]

plenty of fantastic and helpful answers, everybody really makes an effort to help, and I'll try to add my twopence as well. I absolutely love your website design, and I agree with your family, there's nothing wrong with it, it looks better than many other websites. You probably need more time & traffic to generate sales. My second point is, as a woman, who has been buying jewellery online, I love seeing a necklace / earrings / bracelet on the model, to see how big they are, how long the necklace is, it really changes a perspective, and is a great selling point. Another point, and I think it's been made earlier, is that you have to ask yourself how can you differentiate your product from hundreds of other shops selling the same necklace? We all do it, it's not about selling something unique (not always) but about giving the customers the reason to buy from you - and it's not solely based on the price. The purchasing experience, the brand, customer service, packaging, it all matters. Start by defining your brand, and build your business from there:
http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/branding

 

[acornia]

Working with a fashion incubator almost all sites start using compounded growth, flat for a very long period before it takes hold. You are however asking for logarithmic growth, very few know how to do this. For that you need one or more of many years experience, incredible luck, or someone who can provide that knowledge for your scenario.

A website is just a frontend, it is the business behind including margins, product counts, national or international, supply chain, niche or mass market. It comes down to time, the sum of the parts and both Google and visitors trusting your site. The last part is the most difficult but also the most important.

 

[Jeff FV]

Working with a fashion incubator almost all sites start using compounded growth, flat for a very long period before it takes hold. You are however asking for logarithmic growth,

Given that logs are the inverse of the exponential function, why would you want logarithmic growth?

Perhaps you could re-write you post in plain English?

 

[acornia]

Compounded growth is slow and incremental not requiring major upfront investment, the alternative used by incubators requires capital investment but provides rapid growth. The business question is how to achieve rapid growth without the capital investment, there are very few solutions for that scenario.

 

[Jeff FV]

But that doesn't explain why you would want logarithmic growth, i.e. the rate of growth slows with time until it reaches an asymptote (I can use fancy language, too.)

Compound growth is a power function, by using investment surely you could change the parameters of the power, therefore significantly speeding up the onset of growth, without imposing a theoretical limit to that growth?

I write the above a little tongue in cheek, I am sure that you have some excellent advice to give, you might find it more helpful to other forum users if you write it in simple everyday terms. For example, I think that is the first time that I have ever seen logs. used in an everyday discussion.