Even after 1 year, the ecommerce site isn't showing good results
Last year around august, I joined an eCommerce start-up(handicraft items) as the technical head. Though, the company was online for more than 4 months prior to me.
The website look and feel was horrible and it looked more like a blog to say the least. In a month or so, we changed the website design altogether and received pretty good reviews about the same.
From january, we started ad campaigns on google and facebook in a small scale with $50-75 budget on each of them monthly. The campaigns are on and off and we keep changing them. During the campaigns, we have around 150 daily visits. But, the conversion rate is almost nill. The orders have been few and far.
So, I am really worried about the whole venture now. What do you think the problem might be. Do we need to advertise more extensively or handicraft just don't sell online. What can be done to increase the sales.
Small report :- For last one month we had 2334 unique visitors and total orders were 6.
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Have *any* of the campaigns generated more traffic or conversions than the others? One good strategy is to cut the ones that aren't working (or just working less) and add more money/effort to the ones that are working better. – Casey Software 11 years ago
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Asking "What do you think the problem might be?" is way too broad. Can you edit your question to narrow it down to something that can actually be answered? Your question requires way too much speculation, so any answers you may receive won't be useful to you or anyone else. – Zuly Gonzalez 11 years ago
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@ZulyGonzalez actually i wan't to know how can we reach the correct audience. We are trying running ad campaigns but results aren't that supportive. Just wanted to know how can the right people be reached and where. How much traffic does one rate a good traffic for an ecommerce site and what conversion are to be expected. What minimum monthly budget for ads should be spend. These are the question I am looking answers for. I know they are a bit broad but sometimes little suggestions trigger good results – Pankaj Upadhyay 11 years ago
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@CaseySoftware yaa, we have run different campaigns and some have shown better results than others. This new financial year we are going to sort out the better ones for us – Pankaj Upadhyay 11 years ago
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To summarize, you are attracting targetted vistors and converting a little more than 1 in 400 to buys of unique hand crafted items. That doesn't sound bad to me. A niche software site might get 1 or 2 sales out of 100 visitors. You are making a far more difficult type of sale, so lower conversions. – Gary E 11 years ago
3 Answers
You need to take a look at how you are targeting these facebook adverts. From personal experience of running a car detailed focused e-commerce site we found that Facebook didn't really work very well for us. Conversion rates were always significantly lower than the rates we got from good Google search adverts.
Look at who on Facebook these adverts are being seen by and make sure you are focusing on the right people. I would also consider trying out Google adverts rather than Facebook, as your produces are very niche you could get some great conversions if you manage to find the right long tail keywords to trigger against.
Making your online advertising work is an iterative process, you need to constantly review your adverts, views, conversions etc and tune them.
Something that might also be handy is if you use Google Analytics to view what landing page people are hitting and what their exit page is. Finding that people bounce instantly is a very different problem to people browsing but not buying.
A high bounce rate probably means your adverts are not getting to the right people. A lower bounce rate but still no conversions means their could be design changes you need to make to your site in order to funnel people into buying ( but that is a whole different subject )
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can you elaborate a little more on google adverts. We tried those but results weren't too good. May be we didn't utilized it properly. Throw some light on the long tail keywords. Do you mean to say keywords like "handicraft jewelry from india". If possible provide examples from your own situation. Like what kind of keywords you used to get the right people. And yes, thanks for the answer – Pankaj Upadhyay 11 years ago
The website look and feel was horrible and it looked more like a blog to say the least. In a month or so, we changed the website design altogether and received pretty good reviews about the same.What measurements did you make to determine whether the site redesign was successful (or even necessary)? Yes, many of us are all about professional / UI / UX, but even in this age sites like craigslist exist. Why? because the value proposition clearly resonates with the intended customer segment - and change can disrupt that perspective. Don't think so? do some searching on craigslist redesign posts and learn (here's one to start).
Back to the problem at hand - Have you talked to your members? The ones who sell and the ones who buy? Figured out which ones left post redesign? Asked them why they left?
Conversion issues are typically less of a technical and more of a "what do I gain from shopping here". To understand what is gained, you need to understand who your target customer is, what expectations they have (pricing + service), and what alternatives / competition exists to meet their need (in india, nethaat perhaps?).
Armed with this info, you can determine what steps to take in the future.
@Pankaj, DO you know what SEO is ? have you implemented it in your website ?
But first of all Since you are a technical head, shouldn't this be the responsibility of the sales guys ?
If not, since your attempts have failed repeatedly (good that you took a stock check in 4 months), did you consider employing a sales agency for this ? Any marketing strategies ? Any youtube presence ? Any commercial videos ? Any strategies in making current customers come back to your site ? Any ideas on what you could offer to the current customers if they bring in other customers (referrals) ? How about promoting some offers. Some freebies.
Just paying google/fb some money and hoping a spike in your sales in mere 4 months is unreasonable IMHO.
P.S: The site (rdinvent) in your profile page does not open at all. And you are a technical head ?
