Still no sales. Getting traffic, spending money on google adwords and fb ads.

It's tough to say, since I don't know what geographical regions you are marketing these things to. I can say, however, that here in the United States, you can buy practically everything on this website from a whole lot of local stores for less money - even the "free" products once you add the shipping are less at any dollar store, Walmart and even pet stores.

One thing we try to stress in our course is to stay away from products that people can buy locally at brick and mortar stores. When someone decides they want to buy something, they will almost always just drive down the road and pick it up unless there is a SUBSTANTIAL reason to buy it online.

The other thing is, because nobody goes to Facebook to buy things, Facebook ads usually need to be targeting a "WOW, I HAVE TO HAVE THAT NOW!" kind of product. I'm not sure if I saw any of those kind of products on this site. These are the kind of things that people will think are cute and it may lead to lots of "Likes" (Facebook people just love hitting the "like" button for some reason), but there is a wide gap between liking something that is cute and "That's so amazing, I have to have that now!"

Finally, a single pop-up is annoying. Multiple ones go far beyond annoying.

... just my two cents ...

Haven't you tried advertising in Instagram as well? As I checked, your website landing page may need upgrading. You can find online a lot of helpful things to up your web design and put things in proper places. I suggest you invest in that. We all know that a website's landing page is the "entrance" which is every customer's basis to go in further or not.

Leah

You can connect your dropshipping store to Amazon Merchant. Amazon is already an authority so you can piggyback off of them to get Ad sales and quality reviews.

Hi Charlotte,

dave_hermansen gave you a couple good insights here, about maybe finding some products that aren't readily available at the local store.

I'm going to shift gears for a moment, and add another aspect to the discussion (one that's severely missing from the branding on your website)


I just looked at your site, and the first question that popped into my head was "why should I buy from YOU, as opposed to anyone else?"

... What's your value proposition here? Can you give me a reason to "want" to shop with you, (instead of any other online retailer selling similar products?)


Do you have products I can't easily find elsewhere? (Dave already went over this one)


Do you have super fast shipping? (No. 2-3 weeks for delivery is not very fast. Especially when Amazon delivers in 2 days)


Do you have low, low, prices? (No, that's not it either. A quick visit back to Amazon, and I quickly see that your prices are competitive with other sellers, but not super discounted by any means) Your prices are not a deal breaker... but they're not a selling point either.


Is it brand awareness? (No. Maybe someday your brand will be synonymous with pet supplies, but right now your reputation doesn't exactly travel far and wide across the pet universe)

Of course, if you had millions of advertising dollars to spend, then you could certainly go for a brand awareness campaign. And with enough market saturation, you could likely bring in a boatload of customers.
But, since you're asking questions on a free forum, I'll assume you don't have that kind of marketing budget?


So we need to come up with a different value proposition, to help people make the decision to do business with you. (instead of someone else)


You see, there's always different stages of a buyers journey. And without turning this reply into a full length book, let's just go with a basics buyers flow here...


Think... "Awareness - Consideration - Decision"


You're spending money on advertising, and attracting (potentially targeted and interested) buyers.

So we have the "awareness" factor taken care of. And if they're clicking your ad, then they're already beginning to "consider" your offer. (or at least they're curious)


Now, when they land on your site, you need to answer a couple essential questions, to help your visitors continue along the "consideration" path.

Of course, one consideration is if you have products they want? At a reasonable price?


Another factor is, does your website make it easy for them to make a purchase?

Website design, and perception of trust is a huge factor for your visitors journey. You need to have a website that makes it easy for people to find what they're looking for, and makes it easy for them to buy from you.

YourGoToWriter, already touched on the concept of upgrading the design of your site. So I won't spend any more time feeding a dog that's already been fed (OK, not my best metaphor, but I was trying to stick with the "pet" theme here)


Anyway, some of the less obvious consideration factors, are the subtle "trust" factors that most people need to have assurances of.

These subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) factors can help take people from the consideration stage, to the decision stage (hopefully, the "decision" to buy from you)


So, as a potential customer, here's a couple questions I need the answer to...


Who are you? (other than a random person with a website?) And why should I buy from you, instead of buying from someone else?


You're obviously not a big company, with a reputation for serving millions of satisfied customers.

So, can you at least show me that you have a passion for pets?


Are you associated with any pet friendly activities?

Do you have any group affiliations? (like the pet lovers association of UK?)

Are you a certified dog trainer? Or a local dog groomer?

Is there "anything" that makes you even a minor authority? (maybe you have a side business as the neighborhood pet sitter?)


Maybe you're actively involved with animal rights?

For Example: Show me that you donate 10% of your profits to the animal protection society, and I may even spend a few more dollars with you, (and wait 3 weeks for delivery) because now I can see my money going to help a good cause. And I can feel good about contributing to a social issue.
Now, picking sides on a social issue will always turn off some people, while creating raving fans out of others. But when it comes to helping pets, I'd say a majority of people will at least be passively "on board" with the cause.


If you have any of these credentials (or, something else?) don't be shy about letting your website visitors know about it. Put a badge on the sidebar of your site, or a blurb about your associations (Maybe an "about us" page)

Just be sure whatever you say is true. Because if you lie, and get caught... then your credibility will be shot to hell in a heartbeat.


Do you see where I'm going with all of this, Charlotte?


Of course, I'm touching on the concept of your companys "brand image" here, and trying to tie it together with some type of a value proposition.


Now, I don't know much about you, or your business, so I can only give you a few generalities here. But what I'm getting at is this...

Give shoppers a reason to choose you.

Separate yourself from the crowd, and make me believe you're not just another random website, who's selling pet supplies.

Because if you're just another random website selling stuff... then you'll be competing as a commodity, against all the other websites (like Amazon) selling the same stuff. (And Amazon has 2 day shipping)


Hopefully I've given you something to think about.

As Jack Trout so amply stated, over a decade ago (and it's even more true today)... If you want to survive in an increasingly competitive business world, you need to... "Differentiate or Die"


Here's to higher conversion rates, and more sales for you...

All the best,
SAR

First thing? Who ARE you?

I got to your homepage and there's nothing but the image of two dogs above the fold and your desire to sell... No phone number, no name, no I Am a Real Business indicators.

Second: there was a pop-up, then another, then another, then a wheel I was supposed to spin...

Where are you sending people through the ads? If to the homepage, you lose... if to the other pages, you still lose (for the reasons Sarubin listed).

Say I want to buy pill pockets for my pet. On the way home from any direction, I pass by a PetSmart store or something similar, where they sell them. All I have to do is enter their parking lot, shop... not inconvenient enough to shop online.

I do shop online, but as Sarubin already said, when I have a reason. I bought stuff online if it was too big to carry home by myself (exercise equipment), when the price was lower, when I couldn't find it at a local store, when they threw in something else that made sense.

I always bought from sites that look like there's a business behind the site... Some of the 'businesses" behind sites were husband and wife teams or solo entrepreneurs. So, it was the presentation, not the setup.

Since all you do is sell some products, why do I have to go to a different page (from your homepage) or scroll down to see any?

Why is the homepage about you not me, your customer? It's great that you only want the best in pet stuff but what's in it for me, the customer? The changes can be as simple as changing this
We here at 4yourpets are huge animal lovers and only want the best for our pets. As we are sure you do. We aim to provide great quality products for fantastic prices.

to this

Love your pet? Want only the best? You've come to the right place. Whether you're looking for x or y, you will find only the best quality...

Something along those lines.

Wow thank you all for the input I will be taking this all on board and making some major changes to our site and marketing. I have been looking into donating a portion of the profits to a smaller organisation so will definitely pursue this. You are very right about the budget but you gotta spend money to make money right? As for the pop ups I thought I had disabled all but one, I will look into this as I find it annoying so I wouldn't blame anyone else for thinking the same. Again thanks for all your help everyone

Wow, why so many popups? I just went onto the site; before I could look at anything, I got 2 e-mail popups. Most people are gonna leave after that. Just saying.

Yep I left before even looking at items. And I have pets

Website design plays a important role in whether someone will buy it from or not, So you should think from a perspective of a customer and see if your website makes you want to buy.

Maybe youre site is looking too chip?

Hello,

You need to look at other pet stores online, get ideas and redesign your whole site, your site is not even ranking on google at all, I checked, site:4yourpets.co.uk not one page indexed.

This is not an easy niche, if you don't rank for many products you will not get sales, also many people buy from amazon, FB is not where people look to purchase, for paid traffic, use google or bing,,

Your site must be top notch, to get sales

Thanks Rob.

Not sure of others thoughts on this, but I have also gained a lot of insight when I physically see what people are doing on my sites. Using a recording program like mouseflow or smartlook can help you see what people are actually doing on your site. They both also have heatmaps to see how far people are scrolling.

On the first page, why not let people know all orders come with a free item to make your
pet look more beautiful, or some other interesting claim. Your wording needs to pop more and appeal to people's pet loving emotions

You have to show people why it's a better benefit to buy from you, versus buying it cheaper or more conveniently elsewhere, kind of like why people spend more on IPhone over an Android phone, while being fundamentally the same item, a touchscreen phone.

(I know there are granular differences of course, just making an example).

Dave hit the nail on the head. Facebook is a tough egg to crack especially early on. Improve your SEO and post on YouTube daily can get you some views and traffic with the right long tail keyword. Try everything!

well to me it seems you don't incentivize enough, especially if you getting lots of carts or ;lots of initiate checkouts but no sales..

there are some apps that will help you jump start the sales if you getting consistent traffic.

I would double check the target audience and the geographical location where your ads are. Unique clicks are good! If you are getting your audience to the landing page then try to put something on the page to get their attention. Stand out. Do you have a video advertisement of your pet store? Like a behind the scenes video?

I would tweak the landing page and add more to it to appeal to the customer. Add some contact information. Also, I would suggest to research SEO as much as you can as well as Facebook Ads and Adwords. It takes a while to become proficient with these marketing sources.

Do off page SEO and promote it in social media like Facebook, twitter, Instagram.Then You can get some leads

If you're confident that you're attracting the right kind of traffic but it's not working out on the site, it sounds like the site is where you really need to focus your attention.

A site isn't just how people buy things from you, it's how people get to know you, understand your brand and trust you. Every page of the site should be affirming that new customers can rely on you and your products and helping repeat customers get back to the products they want (or find new ones).

To reiterate a key point - every page of your site. Not just the homepage.

Start by asking your friends, family and trusted employees to critique your site. Imagine they're using it for the first time. Are you communicating what make your business special or unique? Can they find what they want, whether that's products or information on delivery, returns or product usage? And, most importantly, are you making it easy to buy from you?

If you want to go in more depth, it doesn't sound like you have the budget for a CRO agency (a service like this https://www.awa-digital.com/) but there's lot of advice out there on conversion rate optimization that you could apply to get started.

You could read these resources - https://www.awa-digital.com/conversi...imisation-tips - or check out the blogs listed here: https://www.digitalmarketer.com/blog...ization-blogs/ for some actionable ideas.

Your website is down though.

Thread was bumped by a one-liner - OP hasn't logged in since March