Can you critique my new eCommerce store?

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Okay, so I'm finally getting set to jump into ecommerce after sitting on the fence for a year or so. I've been reading a lot about others who have successfully established ecommerce stores and I've watched a number of tutorials and even paid for a few courses on how to get started.

I'm working my way through some material that was produced by Fred Lam at the moment.

I'm using Shopify, dropshipping from AliExpress. I'll be advertising on Facebook, and maybe on other social media platforms as well. Maybe I'll create a YouTube channel for the store.

The niche I've chosen is meditation, spirituality, yoga and things that relate to this. I'm thinking about clothing for men and women, yoga accessories, jewelry, artwork, incense, statues and home decor and other items that fit into the new age, spirituality, yoga aesthetic.

Here's my website as it exists right now: https://www.tranquilitypalace.com

It's far from finished but I'm curious to know what you think of the categories I've chosen? Maybe I could add some other products that are more likely to sell?

I think this is a profitable niche, I've just never done this before so I'm not sure what variety of products I should be adding, how many I should have at first, and so forth.

I'd appreciate any feedback you could provide.

Thanks!
#critique #ecommerce #store
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  • Profile picture of the author jrodefeld
    No replies yet? Anyway, I've made some improvements to my store. I've rewritten the descriptions of all my items and changed the navigation a bit. I've removed a couple of items and added some others.

    I think I've chosen a good niche, I'm wondering about my item selection though?

    I wonder if my store is in a state where I could start a Facebook advertising campaign and then tweak it from there?
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    It is a nice looking website, however, there is no compelling reason to buy from this site vs. many others selling the same things. Sure, if people take the time to visit the FAQs page (few will), they can see that you stand by your products. They cannot see that from any other page of the website, however. You need to make it very obvious, perhaps with SATISFACTION GUARANTEED trust seals near the Add to Cart buttons as well as in other prominent places of the website (the header, for instance).

    It also helps to create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) by running banners on every page about an awesome limited time sale going on (even if there is no real sale).

    I'm sure some people will find it odd that during checkout, it is revealed that the company name is Basketball Fitness Zone, which may or may not cause people to wonder about who they are really buying from.

    Finally, you will undoubtedly experience a very high abandoned cart rate, since the shipping add-on is a surprise during checkout. You might want to consider offering "free shipping" and building shipping into the price of each product.
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    • Profile picture of the author jrodefeld
      These are very good suggestions. I intend to add trust seals to every product page, and perhaps the header as well.

      I'll look into the FOMO idea to create some additional incentive for people to place orders.

      The "Basketball Fitness Zone" stuff reflects that I changed my niche and name, but evidently I haven't changed it everywhere. I'll take care of that.

      Not sure I buy into the idea that the shipping "add-on" is a surprise that will deter people. Don't most people expect to pay for shipping when they add an item to a shopping cart?

      Anyway, you offered good advice. I appreciate it.
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        People may or may not expect to pay for shipping. Every internet consumer survey I have ever seen states that free shipping is the #1 thing that customers look for in a website. So, if there is a way to offer "free" shipping, it is best to do it.

        Even without it, customers should know before they get to the final checkout stage what it is going to cost. Many sites that do flat rate shipping or a hybrid of flat rate and free shipping put things up in the header like "Free Shipping for Orders Over $50. Only $6.99 shipping for all other orders".
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        We help sellers get the MAXIMUM amount for their websites and all buyers know that these sites are 100% vetted.
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  • Profile picture of the author jrodefeld
    Okay, thanks for the tip.

    I've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes, setting up a Facebook page, installing and tweaking different plugins and so forth.

    Real quick question I'm hoping someone can help me with. I just cannot seem to get the stupid Facebook Pixel to install correctly on Shopify. It just doesn't seem to connect.

    I'm using Facebook Business Manager. I've created my Pixel, and I've copied the code to the correct place in Shopify.

    I've tried to both copy the entire script to Settings - Checkout - Additional Scripts

    and I've tried to copy just the Pixel ID number to Online Store - Preferences - Facebook Pixel ID


    Yet they don't seem to connect. In my Facebook Business Manager, it just says:

    You're almost done! Finish setting up your Facebook pixel
    Place the pixel code in your website header. For set-up help,
    visit the pixel implementation guide, or launch pixel set-up.


    I seem to have completed every step but there is no connection. Any ideas?
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    • Profile picture of the author agmccall
      Originally Posted by jrodefeld View Post



      Yet they don't seem to connect. In my Facebook Business Manager, it just says:

      You're almost done! Finish setting up your Facebook pixel
      Place the pixel code in your website header. For set-up help,
      visit the pixel implementation guide, or launch pixel set-up.


      I seem to have completed every step but there is no connection. Any ideas?
      shopify has several apps in their app store for this. Although there is a monthly fee from around $6.00 to $15.00 per month. If you plan on doing quite a bit of FB ads then it might be worth it

      al
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      • Profile picture of the author jrodefeld
        Originally Posted by agmccall View Post

        shopify has several apps in their app store for this. Although there is a monthly fee from around $6.00 to $15.00 per month. If you plan on doing quite a bit of FB ads then it might be worth it

        al
        Thanks for the reply but I think I figured it out. I guess my adblocker was interfering in some way. I disabled it and everything seems to be working now.

        I just need to figure out which custom conversions rules I might add or how I might configure my Pixel for better feedback.
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  • Profile picture of the author dimjim77
    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffrey Joson
    check this
    https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.tra...e.com/8J7eJJFF

    please try to improve your site speed, it will help SEO boost your SEO rank. try to reach B score
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    • Profile picture of the author jrodefeld
      Originally Posted by Jeffrey Joson View Post

      check this
      https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.tra...e.com/8J7eJJFF

      please try to improve your site speed, it will help SEO boost your SEO rank. try to reach B score
      I appreciate your recommendation very much. I've actually been spending most of the day trying to optimize my website, though it seems like many of the recommendations are a bit over my head.

      I've made some progress. I've compressed all the images on my website using an app I got on the Shopify store. But still, my PageScore is at only 61% and my YSlow score is only at 70%. I'd really like to get both above 80%.

      I hear a lot of talk about "minifying" CSS and Javascript code, or even combining multiple files into one, but I really don't know what I'm doing.

      Could someone give me a simplified tutorial (or link to one) showing which files need to be modified or combined and how to do this?

      I don't even know which files are the CSS files, I only see a bunch of .liquid files.

      I found some javascript files under "Assets" and I've minified them successfully, but haven't combined them.

      I think I need the dumbed-down version of how to optimize this code to improve my site's speed.
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