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New woocommerce site low conversion

by fiscot
11 replies
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Hey Guys,
I've been lurking for a long time and finally decided that I need some help!

So I've created an ecommerce drop shipping site called:
TanHandbags.com | Leather Messenger, Laptop, Duffle, Bags

I recently got my first order and was very happy with that. But now it seems like nothing is happening. Would any of you like to give me any pointers on where I can improve to increase sales?

Thanks in advance!
#conversion #ecommerce #low #site #woocommerce
  • Profile picture of the author serpyre
    We would love to give you some advice but our knowledge comes from Large Enteprise consultants (Samsonite, L'Oreal, etc.) so it is very very different than how the SMEs look at it - Large Enterprise works on 10:1 revenue:effort whereas SMEs are 1:1. You are niche with 10s products, WooCommerce has an upper average limit of $50,000/yr revenue all things being equal, site is slow (should be ~1-2s) so Google will not pass traffic - coupled with low product counts, odd selling $100s products with .99 or .90 at the end. Then you have the business side such as blogs, backlinks, ppc which is how the SMEs try and generate traffic. You can use this as a baseline Dont add sites to Google Webmaster Tools - $20/mth hosting on Tier 7 with WooCommerce and you can expect ~$400/mth revenue and 125 visitors/mth without marketing or social media - but as you have 10s products not 100s you can probably half that.
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    • Profile picture of the author fiscot
      Thanks for the thoughts!
      Your point about the pricing is great and I'll change that asap. The website should load at about 2.3s, which is pretty slow, but it's mostly the cheap hosts fault.
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  • Profile picture of the author serpyre
    Run a pingdom.com/tools or gtmetrix and it is 6-7s, not the hosts fault, that you're using a cheap host is the problem. Try WPEngine.
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  • Profile picture of the author big tymer
    You have to promote the heck out of your site to get sales. Its a lot more work than people realize
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    • Profile picture of the author fiscot
      Thanks big tymer,
      But still, I got about 500 unique users on my site over the last two days, and still no sales. I guess it has to do with that the traffic was not very high quality, mostly people checking the site out from a design/function point of view.
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      • Profile picture of the author wmrwl
        When did you launch the site and what activities are you taking to increase your traffic?

        We got about a 1% conversion rate in our industry so 500 unique visitors a day isn't enough yet. If your traffic is targeted you should be seeing about 1 sale every 2 days (if your conversion rate is 1%).

        E-commerce is about patience and persistence. Focus on your marketing and not on the lack of sales. The sales will come eventually as you continue to persist with your marketing efforts.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    That WP theme is lousy for a shopping site.

    The theme doesn't even make sense. You have a blue button with text that doesn't suggest to buy anything (Add to shopping bag), while it should be an orange Buy Now button. Even after clicking the blue button on individual product pages the same text is still there, doesn't make any sense.

    You don't even have a link to the checkout cart, how the heck is anyone supposed to buy anything?

    The site layout is very confusing. If you want sales walk traffic through the sales process step-by-step. Make traffic think/guess & they'll bail from the site.
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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      OK lets look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.

      The Good

      Great products when you can actually take a look at them. Looks like high quality bags in high quality leather. Not sure if they are made in the USA or not or of European Leather or just another China product. Not sure if they are top grain or split grain leather.. Amazing number of pictures that show product details (interiors, buckles, etc) so customers can see what they are getting.

      Quality leather pictures (with the flame) showing high quality (home page... I like the touch).

      Caring for the bag post. Great resource.

      The Bad
      Everything on Sale. If they are high quality bags and you are the only one selling them, don't discount. Only cheapens a high end brands.
      Reduce the size of your banner on the home page. You have to scroll quite a bit to get it to show actual products.
      Product Descriptions: You have good product descriptions... if you can find them. It took me a couple minutes (a life time in commerce) to figure out where the product descriptions are and then had to figure out how to get them to show. While it is fancy, its not doing you any favors.
      Checkout - Ok after I add something to the cart, I have a heck of a time trying to find out, how do I actually check out. Don't make it hard for me to check out.

      No Zoom - You have great pictures but when I want to zoom in, I can't. Modern cart should allow a lightbox or zoom function to see close up.

      Menu Structure- I would rearrange your top menu structure to show your sub-categories (messenger, Laptop, Etc.) versus shop -> Men -> Messenger . Don't make it hard for your customers to find things.

      The Ugly
      I don't know what it is with Woocommerce sites but I can always tell when I go to them. Lots of pretty functionality but (IMO) not designed for shopping. You have great looking products that have been lost in this sea of busyness on your website.

      Just my opinion: The Giant Embossed MS on all your bags turns me off. When I am spending several hundred on a bag I want more subtle branding. Look at how Coach or other high end bags do it (usually a leather hang tag). If these are not your brand I could be speaking out of my butt.

      Go to store button - I hate this and is typical of wordpress sites. Your site is the store, everything else should be designed around the store and increasing conversions. The structure you have now is, ok I have a site and if you want to buy something, click here versus, Here is what you should buy and I have a few other things that might help you decide.

      What type of abandoned cart are you getting? I wouldn't be surprised if it is quite high.

      Overall

      Nothing that screams, DONT BUY FROM ME, but it seems like you are making it difficult for your customer to buy from you. Any reason you didn't try a modern shopping cart that is designed around conversions?
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      Not sure what ecommerce solution to use? Watch my video walk through of popular shopping carts.
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      • Profile picture of the author fiscot
        Thank you for the advice guys,
        Very helpful and I can see that I have some work to do

        I will get to work and get back to you with an update with what I've changed, and why.
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
        Banned
        The Ugly
        I don't know what it is with Woocommerce sites but I can always tell when I go to them. Lots of pretty functionality but (IMO) not designed for shopping.
        That's not what my customers say:

        We now have 15 vendors on our site, with over 2,400 published products. Last month we had to move to a dedicated server because we have a huge image load (each product has it's own unique image) but other than that this site hasn't skipped a beat and there's still plenty of room for more vendors and more products.

        Sales have doubled again! We're up over $4000 a month now and it's seriously due to all the features and capabilities in this package. If you can think it, this package can do it - effortlessly!

        The Follow Up Emails plug-in is amazing. We use it to remind new customers to subscribe to our newsletter and give them a little tour of the important links on our site. We also send an email to every customer 7 days after their order ships to remind them to check back because we've added new products since their last visit. And we use them to promote upsells to our membership program. And all of this is done automatically with this plug-in.

        The Product Vendor Extension handles everything. With 15 vendors we do have to pay manually (Paypal auto has a limit of 6) but vendor commissions are right there on their account page, along with their Paypal address. Click over to the commissions report and you can see line-by-line which vendor earned how much money for which product.

        We don't have to do anything to set up a new vendor - the extension does it all, and vendors set up their own products so we're basically another Ebay or Etsy.

        We're also using the Subscriptions plug-in in conjunction with the Smart Coupons plug-in and we've put together a pretty cool membership program that requires almost no upkeep on our part.

        We've learned how to tweak most of the coding and now we're even able to make money selling ad space directly to the vendors instead of relying on PPC (Pennies-Per-Click) affiliate ads.....
        But I do agree that there are a lot better Woocommerce themes out there.
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  • Profile picture of the author Solid Commerce
    A bit of my response is going to echo OnlineStoreHelp...because he's got a tendency to hit the nail square on the head.

    Your site looks great. The design is fresh, clean, and utilizes striking imagery -- all great things.

    That big banner above the fold is a great idea, except you've GOT to reduce it in size to allow some of your inventory to shine.

    You've also ABSOLUTELY got to make that HUGE, STRIKING image a call-to-action. Having just a static image could be totally killing you.

    Have you checked out any heatmap data - CrazyEgg might be totally worth it in terms of helping your conversion. It's very, very affordable, and will show you exactly where customers are clicking on your site. This will give you an idea of how customers are TRYING to use your site, and could really unlock some secrets about why your conversion has been suffering the way it has been.

    So I'd make that big, beautiful picture something that your visitors can interact with, and I'd find a way to move some of your inventory up above the fold, so the visitor sees it straight away.

    You're on the right track, though!
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