HELP - no-one wants my products!!!

[david64]

I am guessing that the reason no one wants your products is because no one knows about the site and your site doesn't instil trust to the few people that are finding it - as pointed out by someone - it's a lightly modified Magento store.

You're going to need some sort of promotion, but before that you are going to need to do a lot on the site to make it a better selling tool. My suggestion would be to find yourself a web and online promotion expert. If you can't afford that, you'll need to take the long road to promoting the site yourself.

[custardfish]

As other have said the modified magento theme isn't great - BUT - I don't think 99% of visitors will know this... to developers though it looks like a dummy/test site as we've all seen plenty. Personally with regards to the public I don't think it matters and your better placed working on oither things atm.

Biggest problems with regards to sales imo is :

1. Low traffic, even good sites only have a 5% or so conversion rate so at your present traffic rates its going to take a while! As other have said pitch locally to Uni's, Colleges - maybe business network lunches etc etc

2. Get REAL contact details on there and a REAL phone number.. highlight the number so they can CALL and TALK through things. You do bundles & setup things for people who need help. Well help them - they're not likely to know what they want either!!


With regards to the website, two quick things I think will make a BIG difference

1. Way TOO much text, no one is going to read this. No one is going to scroll down, no one is going to care you've lost a sale. If you can't sell yourself in 2-3 seconds - tough - they'll just go elsewhere.

Not been harsh thats just the reality of websites.. you can have plenty of copy but only when you've hooked people in.. not before.

I know its a slighty different model but if you goto Amazon etc they don't have half a page of text telling you they sell stuff, they just SHOW you.


So.. as an example.. a QUICK change you can do..

1. On the home page take the top 3 buttons/gfx (look really unprofessional anyway), move them and ALL of the text underneath below the pictures and the product listings right to the bottom of the page. So essentially it all swaps places.

So now visitors to your home page will see the two brief gfx/txt bits highlighting the bundles and the products list showing you sell computer stuff when you first hit the home page.

That says all you need to know right there, you sell bundles and computers. At present your product is hidden at the footer of the page below a description of what you do!

Now I know you configure and setup but, all that text - really? It could and should be condensed into a couple of catchy sales lines... keep ALL the fluff for later.

I'm not a copy-writer but a nice header graphic SHOWING a bundle coupled with some BIG header text ie:

"Fully configured, setup, tested and working laptop bundles delivered directly to your door."


says it all.. (obviously you can get clever etc if you want!) follow that with listings of bundles and like I say push the "Don't know what you need? Call to chat it all through" - line...

Anyhows good luck!

[Mytex]

Hi all,

First of all, thanks to everyone for their constructive feedback – I have learnt so much more from the experience you have been kind enough to share than hours and hours scanning through web-sites etc. Many of the things you have said are obvious to me now but I suppose sometimes we just get too close to what we are doing and miss the big picture.

The reason I had to dash off on Friday was because I was meeting up with a guy from inbiz – who said much the same as you have which is essentially that I need to take a new approach to the website design. He said I need to hit visitors hard with product images and probably better copy – and offers if possible. I took an (infrequent) weekend break to think about all this and will be working on the changes now.

I have a few specific comments/points of clarification/feedback on your advice. I hope this will help others too who perhaps find themselves in a similar situation:

@consultant:
Yep – you are right, it’s a modified magento site and I don’t particularly like the look of it either! Not being particularly technical though, I do find it quite tricky to change and I don’t find Magento very easy to work with. I’ll be working on some different landing pages now though and I hope this will improve things.

Thanks for the tip on contact details – I thought I was ok but am getting confirmation as a matter of urgency.

I know leafleting isn’t very effective as a way of publicising the site and I am looking at other advertising now. Do you or does anyone have any suggestions of a good place to start – given I have a very limited budget! I have an add in vivastreet and I will be putting something on ebay and gumtree asap. I also have entries on bview and sheriffratings.

@ekmgroup and @katherine

It’s a similar message I think – and fully taken on-board. Ekmgroup - Would you please clarify what you mean by more work needed on SEO? I know it probably does need work but can you give me some pointers. Thanks.

I have distributed my flyers locally. I will be getting a few hundred posted off from colleges to students starting their university courses in the next couple of months. I need to contact more universities to get more of this done I think.

Also, yes, I think Katherine is right and it is partly to do with confidence too. Since being made redundant, my father passed away and now my wife has been taken ill so things have been a bit tricky. Don’t get me wrong, I am not having a moan, I just agree that we all need confidence in ourselves (and our products) to make this sort of thing work and it does occasionally take some time after a setback to get back into the right mindset.

I hope to have made some changes to the site by the end of the week so if you get the chance, take another look then. Feedback always welcome.

Thanks, Tim.

[Mytex]

Thanks custardfish for taking the time to respond. What you are saying is pretty much what the inbiz guy said (and others in this thread)...and yes, I will change the order of things.

I understand now that the best way to grab people attention is through a graphic and a short catchy strapline. Once I have them hooked I can give the detail.

I wrote the copy based on other things I have seen on the web so I hope it is alright in itself but I have clearly missed the point of needing to grab peoples attention first.

Thanks for your advice on that.

Cheers, Tim.

[PainFreeMarketing]

The site looks and reads a billion times better Mytex

You may continue to tweak it, but you're definitely getting there. Well done.

That didn't take you long at all!

[Alvin]

Your main problem is going to be that you have chosen a seriously competitive area.

Design is no big problem at this stage.

Price as always is a consideration.

But you are going to need a good SEO to get your site the traffic it will need to turn a profit.

Have you considered PPC or are you using it now.?

Alvin

[Mytex]

The site looks and reads a billion times better Mytex

You may continue to tweak it, but you're definitely getting there. Well done.

That didn't take you long at all!

Thanks painfreemarketing.

Cut and paste is a wonderful thing (ha,ha).

I know I still need to re-write stuff as well as redesign lots. I hope I can keep the momentum going....

Tim.

[lumina]

You can post messages with links in forums and blogs so in this way you will promote your webpage and have more visitors and clicks.

[Mytex]

Thanks lumina.

Yes, I am doing this - and it touches on the next challenge for me. So far, I have been taking advice and trying to keep visitors when they arrive at my site - I'm still working on this. But I also need to address the problem of not getting enough visitors.

What you suggest is certainly one way to grow traffic and leafleting and advertising is another but what do people think about better SEO for me? I am not convinced that it would help much (could be very wrong) as people would not realise they could benefit from a service they don't know exists and therefore would not search for.

Using keywords which describe my service (say "mobile computing office bundles") brings me up on page 1 of google. However, googling something related but more common (eg "mobile computing") means I don't even show in the top squillion pages...and even if I did, would someone entering this on google be interested in my products and service?

For now, I am going to do as you suggest and try to drive traffic that way.

Thanks, tim.

[LOS Design UK]

Thanks lumina.

Yes, I am doing this - and it touches on the next challenge for me. So far, I have been taking advice and trying to keep visitors when they arrive at my site - I'm still working on this. But I also need to address the problem of not getting enough visitors.

What you suggest is certainly one way to grow traffic and leafleting and advertising is another but what do people think about better SEO for me? I am not convinced that it would help much (could be very wrong) as people would not realise they could benefit from a service they don't know exists and therefore would not search for.

Using keywords which describe my service (say "mobile computing office bundles") brings me up on page 1 of google. However, googling something related but more common (eg "mobile computing") means I don't even show in the top squillion pages...and even if I did, would someone entering this on google be interested in my products and service?

For now, I am going to do as you suggest and try to drive traffic that way.

Thanks, tim.

Without giving too much away, what is your starting point (stick in the ground).

ie what is your current traffic flow (approx.)

Bear in mind that an approximated industry standard states a 1% conversion rate...