What are we doing wrong?

by Fanus
44 replies
We started Fine Food Portfolio | Fine Food | Order Food Online - Fine Food Portfolio and since the launch last week got 300 - 500 hits per day but no orders so far?
#wrong
  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    What do you mean by "hits"?

    How many unique visitors have you had?

    You say "last week" ....that was one day ago. Bit early to be panicking don't you think?
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  • Profile picture of the author Evocess
    I would agree with John.
    One week is too early for you to panic.
    Maybe you can wait another week to see if there will be a sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author Fanus
      Thanks guys, not panicking (yet) ....I checked with our IT guy, for the month of April so far we had 261,000 hits and unique visitors 1,090. (The website has been up for a while, but the online shop became active last week monday) We found a few basic design errors on our welcome page, and are busy changing it as we speak.
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      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by Fanus View Post

        .....unique visitors 1,090.
        So you've had 1,090 uniques. All to the shopping cart or elsewhere?

        Forget about asking for advice here, you'll only get opinions. You need to implement some form of user behaviour analysis tracking like Crazy Egg or Clicktale. Get that onsite, gather data, then make adjustments in accordance to what the data is telling you.

        Here's a few tips.

        1. Simplify your site. Less is more
        2. Perform test transactions
        3. Reduce hops to final checkout.
        4. Increase your onsite content.
        5. Get the advice from an expert at ecommerce.

        Check out Ezra Firestone. The guy is apparently an ecommerce machine.
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        • Profile picture of the author Luis Vaugier
          You really have to change the text on the main page, it just doesn't sale, maybe you can add a video where you explain the process to order in your site.
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        • Profile picture of the author 4DayWeekend
          Are the visitors targeted? Do they know who you are? Do they know your brand?

          If not, why would they buy? Do you think your site does enough to entice people who don't know who you are? I don't...

          If the visitors are targeted, then the problems are definitely with the site. Here are the problems I've noticed just from looking at the homepage...

          Generally the site doesn't look very professional. What is with all the grey space at the top? The 'endorsed' banner seems to be floating in the middle of nowhere as does the South African flag... I would suggest some sort of imagery at the top. A slideshow would be good, but the images would have to be better quality.

          The product images all look different. Some have backgrounds, some are on a white background, they are all different shapes and sizes. Try and make them uniform. If i'm buying food I need to trust the provider, professionalism establishes trust...
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          • Profile picture of the author Fanus
            We really appreciate all the input - keep it coming!
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        • Profile picture of the author wisedave
          Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

          Check out Ezra Firestone. The guy is apparently an ecommerce machine.
          John has nailed it with this one!

          (Now give me some doughnuts!)

          Cheers,

          FWF Alumni
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          • Profile picture of the author AdRock91
            Where is the traffic coming from? Paid? Search? I mean if the quality of the traffic is low you will see your site stats go up all day but you may never see actual result. I am interested to the answers to the questions.
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            • Profile picture of the author Fanus
              I will get the answers from our IT guy. We have made changes to the site based on your recommendations and are still busy adding product pictures. Please have another look at Fine Food Portfolio | Fine Food | Order Food Online - Fine Food Portfolio and let me know what you think?

              BTW this is by far the most value I EVER got for $10...

              A BIG thank you to all!
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              • Profile picture of the author Fanus
                A week ago we started an email campaign on a database of 2500 clients of 2 producers, we distributed 10,000 booklets and our Facebook page is active which all contributed to the following:

                Direct link 6404
                Google.co.za 203
                Google.com 81
                Warriorformum 56 (!)
                Facebook.com 55
                T.co 35
                Powfood.co.za 30
                Google.co.uk 19
                Za.ask.com 11
                And a few other search engines 20
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                • Profile picture of the author agmccall
                  One thing i noticed is the product descriptions. One product had a description of 1 sentence

                  The main banner on your home page advertises a micro brew beer but the description tells nothing about the different beers in the case. I want at least the minimum amount of information, even a bit of the personal

                  al
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  • If your sales are non existent then it may simply have to do with brand recognition and branding. (building trust etc). This may take some time. Also you need to capture your visitors email addresses more aggressively, because once they are gone, they are gone.

    If your goal is international traffic then maybe change the currency to something more familiar or introduce a currency converter in your shopping cart. I tried putting in a few products and had no idea how much I would be paying.

    Personally I think the entire welcome paragraph right at the top of the home page could use some reworking.

    The one that reads: "Do you crave that home-made sauce from the sweet little old granny at the market? Do you wish that you had access to fresh, free-range lamb and artisanal products without driving everywhere to find it?" Then the Fine Food Portfolio will be just your cup-of-tea, or drizzle of sauce, or shot of home-made liqueur if you like!

    This and other text on your site makes your site look and sound a little too much mom and pop.

    Maybe less talk and more images. Not just product images of jars, but personal images of people enjoying the foods instead. That's why food commercials don't show you a boring can of food and a price, but a whole story of a family sitting around a table enjoying each others company.Your site feels like a grocery store isle. Make it more like a family kitchen.

    Also your testimonials are currently hiding, and should be in large letters as a slide show on the top of the home page. (just my opinions).
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  • Profile picture of the author sanhal
    Not sure if you mean orders for your services or product sales.

    At first glance it looks as if you just do catering. It was not immediately obvious to me that you sell products online.

    Were is your traffic coming from? A lot depends on the quality of it and if it is targeted traffic.

    Your text is quite small and not easy to read. The Endorsed by and We support logos are very large and prominant and don't really need to be above the fold.

    Sandy
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  • Profile picture of the author happyday
    Good, make the changes and intensify your marketing efforts for now. You would have reached more prospects if you stop haggling on those 'early orders' and reach out better.
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  • Profile picture of the author vishwa
    Actually The flow of visitors to your site is coming, But Your users does not stay to your site, they just open your site and then close it after just one sight. So, just try to engage your visitors and let them to stay on your site. You Can engage your visitors by providing some offers, some discount coupon codes, This will help your users to make a purchase on your site
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  • Profile picture of the author Anne0521
    The text under your "Welcome" is very small and boring. Why don't you change it's size and many font? What is your call to action? You don't invite your visitors to buy. Seems like you're just inviting them to see your site then nothing!Why don't you put a price on each image then an order/buy button? This are just my suggestion since I'm not an expert about this things.
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  • Profile picture of the author Martin Avis
    The main thing that struck me is that you show products on the front page and ask visitors to 'add to cart' but don't tell them how much the products will be.

    Personally I would never add anything to a shopping cart without knowing the price!

    At first I thought the products shown on the front page were all that you offer - it took a bit of digging to see that you have to click on the 'Shop' link and then select a department from the dropdown menu to see more products.

    I wonder how many people just leave without digging?

    Perhaps a better entry to the stock lists would be better - like department-themed icons to click on the front page to make it obvious how to navigate the site?

    Martin

    Edit: Correction - I see that you do show prices for the bestsellers, but not for the featured products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Leanne King
    You've been given some great advice already on this thread about design and tracking - I'd suggest you start with that.

    I looked at your website and didn't "get" it at all. It does not appear to flow the way that a user would expect. Have a look at some other foodie websites at the graphics they are using, how those graphics tell a story and the information that they have on their site (and where they have it!). I assume you will be replacing those default "chefs table" images for your best sellers as most people eat with their eyes ...that logo doesn't make me at all hungry
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  • Profile picture of the author Jtraits
    You can start promoting your website as well in order to make the visitors stay rather than just visiting, browsing and closing... you can use an email marketing company to send offers and many more... i am working with one, you can send me a PM to give you their link.
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  • Profile picture of the author Leinfinito
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author MontrealSEO
    read up on conversion rate optimization
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  • Profile picture of the author Stripe
    I noticed the same thing on several websites I set up for a customer of mine when I first started out. We had tons of hits and nothing really to show for it. After digging into it a little more, I realized that we were getting some very random traffic. It was not until we built the proper back links to drive directed traffic that the magic started to happen.

    Now I do not really get very excited with just seeing traffic. I want targeted traffic and that shows in your conversions.

    I won't go into a lot of detail because there are already a ton of great comments here, but it sure looks like the same symptoms I had a few years ago.

    All the best!
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    • Profile picture of the author Fanus
      Thank you for this! How do we go about building the back links?
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    Your product descriptions are flat and they don't do you much good in terms of SEO. Also, they aren't really that engaging. How do I know? I have written THOUSANDS of SEO-driven product descriptions. The secret? Attention grabbing titles with keywords + engaging text that speaks to the NEEDS of the reader.
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  • Profile picture of the author LuckyIMer
    I wouldn`t be that drastic writeaway. He can change everything with some small tweaks..
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  • Profile picture of the author mahol
    Man you are going good actually. In just one week you got 300-500 visitors a day that means in upcoming time you are going to rock.

    Remember one thing that only traffic is not important. You traffic should have interest in what you are writing, what you are providing. We call it as targeted niche based traffic.
    example- I have blog for "Shoes" and traffic on my blog is searching for "Food" will i get any sales from my blog.
    So try to get which traffic you are getting targeted one or just junk traffic...
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    • Profile picture of the author 4DayWeekend
      Looks a lot better than before.

      A few additional things...

      The spacing looks little haphazard to me. Add space between the rotating banner and the 3 images beneath (so it is the same as the space above).

      Then have the same space again between 3 images and copy, copy and featured products, and featured products and footer. At the moment, there is too much free space in there areas.

      Make more use of the space on the right of the copy. Maybe have a 'we ship worldwide' graphic or something. At a glance, as an English visitor, I see the SA currency and click off straight away...

      On the product pages, the layout needs a little work. On the left hand side there is loads of space between the image and the boarder while on the right hand sides the description is close to touching the border.

      Also, break the description down a little so it's easier to read.

      It may sound anal, but it just looks a little unprofessional on these pages. And I like the site to look professional when they're handing my credit card details!

      Huge improvement though, definitely well on the way.

      Best wishes,
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  • Profile picture of the author Eric R
    First thing you need to do is to start to capture your visitor email address, do what you need to, to get their info, whether it's free information on wine, taster packages. You need to be able to market to these people.
    Decide what/who is your target market, because looking at the site it's difficult to determine. Also the pictures of your products need to be bigger and more prominent and also appetizing, honestly they do not!
    Give them a reason to buy from you, what's your differential from other similar sites?
    How are you getting people to your site currently? Is it through online or offline methods?

    If you don't direct the right people your traffic is wasted. Get your friends and family to put some real reviews on the site about the products and whether they are value for money. What the service is like, how quick the delivery was. There is tons of stuff you can do!
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  • Profile picture of the author eugenedm
    I don't mean to be harsh, but I have noooo idea whatsoever what you are doing...
    What are you doing? Can you just tell me right there and then what you sell??? I mean from the first glance!!!! Bam in my face... Can you do that? You are not specific.

    If you are a store, then spy on amazon.com or ebay.com . They have been around for a long time.

    If you are a service then correct your copy and tell them that you do catering.

    Also consider videos for better conversion.
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  • Profile picture of the author debra leroy
    Banned
    If you open a new store with usual products, people will get in, see what is all abiut and get out IF they do not find it interesting enough for them and different from what they have already seen.
    You need to "make some noise" :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author Fanus
      Eugene, thanks for your advise. We are an online shop adding value with related services. Do you suggest we separate the site?
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      • Profile picture of the author Fanus
        Debra, what do you mean by "making noise?" Thanks!
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        • Profile picture of the author Fanus
          Eric, thanks for your input. We also distribute a printed catalog of our products in "menu form". There is a link on the "About us" page:

          About us - Fine Food Portfolio

          Your opinion please?
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonBennet
    You might want to have a opt in form on your website so that you will be able to follow up with them through email. I think the main issue is that I do not know what you are trying to sell when I come to your website. You might need to make it more obvious.
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  • Profile picture of the author LiftMyRank
    Put a feedback form on your site offering something for free for visitors to fill it in, ask questions like "what is stopping you from buying our product", "what could we change to entice you to buy", etc.....collect at least 100 responses and you'll quickly discover any issues....
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  • Profile picture of the author MarketingMonk
    Patience is a virtue my friend. Just continue what you are doing and be consistent.
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