How I destroyed my sales and how I got them back.

I have a cheapie item that I sell, it isn't anything fancy but it sells okay. Unfortunately, it seemed like no matter what I did, I would get several emails a day from people who needed help. Finally, I set out to fix the problem.

Thinking I was clever, I decided to make a video about the checkout process and I also included a long-winded write-up about how to pay, how to get the download, etc. I tried to answer every question possible. It really was a work of art. But what happened? My sales went from moderate to NOTHING. Instantly they dried up. NOBODY was buying a thing. Awesome. This isn't a huge item for me but every penny helps. I let it run a few weeks and made maybe two or three sales so I knew something was wrong.

Anyway, I decided to delete all of that crap and start over. I scrapped the video, took down all of the instructions (except for my contact information) and just put one link to shopping cart. BAM! Sales started up again and now Rich is a happy camper.

It just goes to show that your sales success is only partly determined by the product, you need to make it easy for people to pay, too.

Lesson learned: Keep it simple, stupid.