Goatermountain

Hey Everyone,

My brother and I have started a t-shirt company 2 months ago. We're looking for some feedback on how we can make our shopify page better.
Here is our website www.goatermountain.com
We're looking to do the following:

Have more people subscribe to our e-mail list
Get more sales

We are an camping and hiking store...with a hint of goat. Our products are mainly clothing related but we're expanding into more camping and hiking related goods. So far we have tents, water bottles, and mugs.

We're currently running a grand opening contest...when you sign up you automatically enter into our contest for a free shirt and get a discount code. This is to attract more subscribers. Then, with an email marketing campaign turn them into customers...


Thanks for your honesty and I look forward to what you have to say.

savidge4

Dude you copied an article straight from REI.. images and all. You cant do this... Forget the fact its against the law... it has no value in terms of getting you new customers by using duplicated content for SEO.

You want to make a go at your own business... Start doing the work.. write the content, take the photos. Its ok to re write the REI article in your own words.. and by all means take your own photos.. its NOT that hard.

I just hate to see you putting in the work you are ( building the site ) only to watch it all come down because you basically are stealing.

mrswagset

Personally, I think your logo has too many elements going on. You're better off using one of the more minimalistic logos on your mugs (just the horn intersecting the mountains) or go for something else with a stronger silhouette.

As for this, well you've got other work to do then..

Goatermountain

Thanks for that, I thought you could share others work as long as you credit them, I just deleted it this morning.

RogozRazvan

I don’t know what you’ve stolen (or not) but I can spot a few key problems.

First of all, your brand is not communicated too well. So there’s a thing about goats. And climbing.

Well, don’t get me wrong but I am a hiker and I don’t really care about goats. I care about quality, reliability and price. I know that brands like Patagonia are good because many people use them in places that are not really “amateur friendly”. I know that Nike is not that good for hiking because it focuses more on comfort than on thermal isolation.

You know what’s even funnier though?

You have a picture showing the mountainside. It shows heavy duty equipment. Then you have one related to rock climbing. It shows equipment you’re not even selling.

What’s under it? T-Shirts. And coffee mugs. So you’re trying to sell to people who hike in extreme conditions (either on the lower or upper side) and yet you’re selling casual items. Do you see the disconnect?

The copy for the products is borderline useless. Here’s an example:

Are you a fan of epic hiking? Your absolutely going to love this!

This is not how you write copy mate. The people who are researching for this, are looking for specific features. Yes, they want an interesting design but remember that this is hiking equipment and not street urban clothing. I want to know how it helps me be more comfortable you know?

Look mate, here’s my advice. Hire a copywriter. Call me a jackass if you want but the copy is not only NOT effective but it lacks any common sense whatsoever.

First DEFINE who your market is.

Second, FIND OUT what they want.

Third, POSITION your products and your brand as a solution to their needs.

Just because you have a goat on your products, this doesn’t make you special. There are going to be a few people who are going to buy for novelty sake (yes, for the goat) but most are going to be a bit more critical than this.

You don’t have a strong brand. You don’t have a story. If you want to go the brand route, I want to connect with you. I want to feel rapport. I want to say “here’s two guys who are doing the same thing as I am and they understand my needs, they’ve faced the same problems as I’ve did / do and found a solution”.

Even the entire idea of epic life is a disconnect. If you were a hiking guide / tourism agency then yes, selling packages for an epic adventure would make sense. However, you’re selling specialized clothing. Where’s the logic in that?

You know, I once saw a video advertorial about a guy who has a niche shop for hiking equipment. Every time he releases something, he goes into nature and tests it for one month, every single day, to make sure that it works. Every one of his products is approved through real world testing and he build a brand based on this. People could even find him on the mountain, testing new prototypes of products before these are put on sale.

That’s a brand. This is not.

Once I’ve read on a website about how a guy liked Patagonia and all the other brands but for that particular climate, they weren’t really what they needed. So he build his own equipment and then his friends asked him if he could do the same for him. This in turn lead to a business.

That’s a brand.

Or this brand, popular one, that started as a guy selling clothes to college sports team around the country from his car, offering a level of quality that was unheard at that time.

That’s a brand.

This in all honesty, is a goat and I have ZERO reasons to buy from you as opposed to anyone else. It shows a lack of effort in market research and in defining and clearing the market message.

So, my suggestion - hire or bring help of someone who knows what he’s doing.

Best regards,
Razvan

Goatermountain

Thank you for your honesty, this one is the most helpful so far. I agree with what you're saying about our copy, its disconnected very much. As much as I'd love to hire a copywriter it's not foreseeable in the near future. Which is why I came to everyone to review it for me. With that being said...thank you.

hf1664

Razvan gave you really solid tips. You should copy his post and keep it inside a text document on your computer (for future reference).

Now, I'll add a few more things to help you out a little and give you more ideas on what to do...

The first thing you want to do, before trying to sell anything in any kind of niche, is to find a starving market. Even the world top copywriters are following this rule, because you simply can't sell anything to anyone.

Don't try to sell meat to a vegan person.

Now, the thing you should do is try to see what the hikers would love to buy (something useful, not just a random tent/mug/t-shirt with your logo) and that you can provide them. Of course, I'm not talking about trying to develop some high-tech boots or equipement (altough this could be an option depending on your budget), but you can sell them things that you can get as easily as those shirts/mugs.

So, what could you sell them? Maybe some some kind of gel to put in the boots, some kind of "special sunscreen", some energy bars, some kind of ebook on How to maximize energy in high altitude, etc.

Now, understand that I'm not an hiker and that I didn't study that particular market... So I'm just giving you some quick ideas on things you could easily acquire and try to sell.

This being said, I think that the pictures on Instagram are pretty interesting. So you should keep building a following of hikers until you find a good product to sell.

About the t-shirts/mugs. You probably didn't want to pay for an illustrator or perhaps you held a contest at the nearest Parkinson's Disease Club... But it looks really bad.

Now, don't panic! I think you could really use that design (especially with some "cheesy" quotes) and try to make it become a "meme" by posting on sites like Reddit. It has potential for that, especially after video games such as "Goat Simulator" came out.

I hope this helps for now. The faster you realize your mistakes, the better it is!

P.S: Stay away from paid advertising for now.

RogozRazvan

Well, six months ago, you may have called my approach self-serving. These days, it is not.

Life is simple. You either know what you're doing or you're finding someone who knows what he or she's doing. You've came here, on a public forum hoping to get a marketing and positioning analysis.

Well, it simply doesn't work this way. You know why?

Because while I can tell you the principles of proper copywriting, I haven't done a research of your niche. I haven't researched your competitors. I haven't researched your products. I haven't been through the sales funnel.

Or let me put it this way.

You have a headache.

You come to me for some advice. I use common sense and ask you a few questions. Then I realize that you've spent too much time at the PC and you have a slight cold.

I tell you to take some pain-killers and go to sleep.

However, you don't know if your headache was something a lot worse. You don't know if you have a cold or the flu. You don't know if you have the flu or yellow fever.

That's why people called doctors exist - to serve your needs in the right manner.

So it is with the advice here. Copywriting is not a big deal. There are many good copywriters. However, be it me or hf1664, we're like that friend telling you to take a pain-killer.

We're not the doctors because our contact with your business was a grand total of a few minutes. And this can be said about anyone else who posts here. It is a superficial, first look analysis based on no real market research and no systematic process to get to that conclusion.

Which makes me say that the information you'll get here won't serve you much as it is based more on what works in general than what works in your particular case.

Which leads me to my initial point - work with someone who knows what he or she is doing or read a few copywriting books. In this case, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You either have to put in the real effort to learn how to do this right and avoid the Twitter version of web marketing education, you need to pull out your credit card and pay for it or you need to accept that you don't have a strong brand and that you need to sell through other means.

Good luck.

PS: Here's my suggestion.

Go to Amazon. Buy the top five copywriting books. Read them. Read before sleep. Read while on the toilet. Read while in the bus. Read after sex. Read while you're having your morning coffee.

Then try again and see what happens.

Splatterfox

VERY well said, couldn't agree more.

@OP: I think your website and "brand" suffers under the typical "I made a brand so it has to be desirable-syndrome". Its a common thing that I see many people in E-Commerce doing when they get their businesses started.

However, a brand is not neccessarily a desired brand. I know that publishing your own first store or brand is something you are automatically proud of, but many people lose their perspective on it and fall for the illusion of having created something special and cool.

Like Razvan said, you currently lack an enticing website which shows interesting products in a convincing way. A brand is only an asset if its popular and widely recognized (at least in your niche), standing for a specific customer experience and expecations towards the products. Right now your goat will cause more confusion than benefits I guess.

I would work on your site itself, eventually redesign some of your products and focus for example on very good content through your blog. Marketing through social media for example and building a followership can also be a great thing.

PBScott

Here is something I wrote a few years back that might be worth a read to you
http://ezinearticles.com/?So-You-Wan...re?&id=7079567

I have seen great shirt websites die and crappy website do well, the crappy ones spent millions on them, the good ones ran out of money much faster. I would not suggest a shirt company to anyone, I do like a few of the designs, but how many goat shirts can each household really handle ? If you want to plug out another 1000 great designs, you should be able to make minimum wage soon after without much more work put in. I believe getting rich in the shirt industry requires you to be rich in the first place, we have been doing the slow growth on a budget for nearly a decade now, and my initial investment has not yet been put back in the bank. I wish I had heard of the phrase "go broke fast" back when I started.

My advice in the article is to do some testing on e-bay, amazon, cafepress and the like to get your feet wet selling your designs before spending too much work on the website.

You seem to be trying to sell your brand, but your brand is unknown so irrelevant, it is OK to have a few branded shirts, but your going to need to offer something else besides the ability for a customer to advertise for you. A small brand logo on the back of the shirt between the shoulder blades would be better in my opinion, and then big epic pictures on the front of the shirt which are not brand related.

If you don't look at this => Really Funny Shirts <= you missed something in life

Splatterfox

I agree, but I see the Amazon and eBay thing differently.

As a new brand in fashion its almost impossible to effectively compete on these platforms. People go there either to get very cheap clothing or to search directly for certain brands they already know. Ranking on these platforms for specific, competitive fashion keywords is super difficult. And if you advertise your products additionally, your profit margin shrinks even more.

I think an online store is definetly the right way to go when doing fashion, simply because you can handle everything yourself and can present your products and brand message they way you intended to.