New Goal

Try to create a YouTube channel and link to your website. And create videos of their products and upload them to the channel. And then promote the channel to gain viewers and hopefully direct visitors to the website.

Do you have social media accounts for the things you sell? Having accounts in several platforms helps in building strong online presence.

To say nothing about how optimized your site is...for these kinds of products, I bet YouTube is your best bet. But you really should supplement that with socials and use those to post your videos and other relevant content. Be patient.

You need to ask what seperates you from Amazon? We can rule out price right? So the question is why are you even trying to compete with them on that level?

So there are basically 2 variables in life.. there is time and there is money right? If you want a better price and you have the time, you will purchase on Amazon... BUT you have what Amazon does not.. A store, a geographically active audience that may be looking to buy things.. and may not have the TIME to wait for whatever it is they need.. they need it tomorrow so they can be weekend warriors and do whatever little project they have around the house.

Does your site currently have the ability to buy online and go in store for pickup? If its good enough for walmart.. home depot, Lowes etc etc it should be good enough for you no?

My biggest suggestion, focus your SEO efforts Locally. develop a USP ( unique selling prospective ) around time. need it today, get it today. Try and match online order with local pick-up getting a discount equal to whatever instore discounts that may be possible ( seniors or veterans discount ) Basically create the needed incentive to order online.

How much traffic does the website get? How is the website/business better than Amazon? You need to figure out how to pitch it that visitors are better off with you than Amazon (and other online retailers).

One of the ways you can stand out from Amazon is by giving your readers better information.

What plants work best in the northeast? Which survive in the summer heat of Texas? What fruit besides oranges grows in Florida? How do you kill pests without chemicals that can harm your dog?

Have a place where you can answer readers questions about problems they're having in their garden.

Start a Facebook group for gardeners. Build a community and do videos.

Give away a report to get people to signup for a mailing list. "How to start a garden on budget." "The Easiest Veggies to Grow in Your Backyard" or "Starting a Herb Garden in a Tiny Space".

Then send them information every week along with a special offer.

Rose

I created a website for them, but we haven't made any online sales yet. (Thanks to Amazon)

Red flag buddy Amazon or no other outside source is responsible for your success or failure. You are. If anything, Amazon makes it incredibly easy to make more sales with their 1 click buy widgets, Associate embeds and algorithms for rewarding sellers who bust their tail. Do not blame; own. This is the first step to generating sales for the store.

Create helpful content related to the hardware niche through a self-hosted wp dot org blog. Stand out from the crowd. Boost sales by offering valuable information for free, then calling readers to the store sales page.

Your sales increase as your giving increases, so start creating articles, videos and even consider a podcast if you want to stand out from the home improvement crowd.

Ryan

Promote various channels, then you will find the best place you should focus on : SEO or Google ads or Facebook ads or Local sales group, etc.

Thanks everyone for posting their advice.

One thing we discovered was if you can react quickly to customer's needs and enquiries. - Paul Savage touched on this.

One simple way to generate sales is to be there for the customer who is browsing and by that I mean install some real LIVE CHAT widget to your site and utilise a prompt where the widget asks the visitor "What they need help with right now?"

It is an easy thing to set up and you can have either a desktop, laptop or mobile device logged in an active as the "Support Agent".

We use Zendesk across all our sites but for one site you can just use their "Live chat" formerly Zopim - or Olark is another good choice. Low cost and you can see results immediately.

Customer can ask about problem. Hardware guys can tell them the solution and just take a payment over the phone or when they come in.

If you have ecommerce set up you can paste links to order online for pickup.

Otherwise just create a PaypalMe link on the fly and paste it in the chat.

BAM

Customer has purchased and you have achieved online sales.

Each and everyday I can attribute a large percentage of revenue to this very process and we sell everything from small items to thousands of dollars orders via that simple integration.

It is easy to attract a wider customer base than your local area and in many cases you can broaden your product range without any additional costs.

For example we sold over 500 metres (yards) of a melamine strip yesterday that we didn't even have in stock or listed on our website just because someone was asking for it and they needed it relatively quickly. Because we knew what the item was called we were easily able to locate it in a wholesaler who had same day shipping. Whilst on the chat we took a payment from the customer and at the same time processed an order to be direct shipped. $200 instant profit for about 7 minutes of a staff members time.

This happens everyday in one way or another either by selling our own stuff or by sourcing products quickly.

The other strange thing that happens when you start doing the real chat support thing is you generate great reviews on Google ( which you can also do by pasting your business review link into the chat BTW) which seriously boosts your results in the serps.

Best regards,

Ozi