eCommerce Tycoon

**po7** · 09-15-2010, 07:34 PM

Hi there. We have a website that is doing so poorly, we are getting ready to close it.

We get about 14,000 unique visitors and about 2 to 3 sales per month, so the conversion rate is 0.02% at most. And it's not just the sales. We barely even get phone calls and it'll be a week before someone sends us an email to ask us a question. On the other end, our competitors are thriving and expanding. We have been looking into our analytics and the landing pages are seen by visitors with an average stay of 1:25 min on each page and bounce rate of 34%. We also started running A/B tests and improved calls to action, but the improvement has been negligible.

We are puzzled why our sales are so poor. Our keywords that people use in search engines are spot on and our prices are in line with our competitors. We're not sure why we have such poor sales. We have contacted about 3 conversion specialists and they didn't believe that we only get 2-3 sales per month. One of them laughed and hung up the phone. Please, if someone could lend a critical eye, we would greatly appreciate it. We will give this website our best until November 30, if by then it doesn't turn a corner, the website will be shut down, which will be a shame but seems like has to be done.

Here is the URL of the site:

http://tinyurl.com/28sfgst

THANKS!!!!

**karana** · 02:41 AM

your site is very beautiful! Do you always have 2-3 sales per month or only on summer?.. According to my experience on summer sales are very slow and poor because of summer vacation.. then (autumn, winter, spring) the situation is improving.. Maybe you should wait.. Maybe you should offer lower prices in comparision with your competitors.

**ThailandForum** · 09-16-2010, 02:51 AM

There is no address, why would people trust you, you mention workshop, but I can't find an address for it or even a photo of it.

**smoseley** · 09-16-2010, 05:51 AM

Have you ever actually tried buying something on your site? There are several things you're doing poorly.

#1 - The homepage isn't selling anything, or clearly presenting your company as even an e-commerce site. Your categories should be neatly ordered in a left column, and use a wide right column to show your most popular products. The current homepage shows only one product, very poor use of real-estate. Look at all major e-commerce websites for inspiration. Get at least 10 products at or near the top of the homepage, kill the banner, and get some categories in a left column.

#2 - Have you tried actually buying a product? The checkout process is long and laborious, requiring much work to customize a product, then preview your customization, then add it to your cart, then yet another click just to get to the cart!!!

#3 - This deserves its own item... when I try to check out, I'm taken to a screen ASKING ME TO LOG IN!!!! Worse, the registration button CAN'T BE FOUND!!! I am a very experienced web user, and I had to search for about a minute to find it!!! TERRIBLE!!! Even as big as it is, it doesn't stand out as a registration button!!! And the registration form doesn't appear until you click the button!!!

#3b - Reverse the process above. Assume that people shopping with you are new customers instead of returning ones. Don't call it 'Registration', but 'Check Out Step 1' (Don't want people scared off by the word registration).

#4 - Paypal link is too prevalent. Make sure the main checkout link has credit cqard logos next to it so people know they can check out in your site.

#5 - Make sure your phone number and local address are prominently displayed at the top of your site, so people can call if they have questions. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT for high-ticket items like yours.... half of your sales should happen by phone. Always put 'Questions? Call us at ###-###-####' next to every action item (checkout buttons, etc) so people feel comfortable to call if they have any concerns.

If you're getting 14,000 uniques and no sales, that's a **** shame. You should be making a fortune!!!!

Unfortunately, all of the above are common mistakes made by 'going cheap' on web development companies and getting an unusuable default configuration on your shopping cart. You should expect to get what you pay for... if you want to make money, pay for a company that knows how to make websites that work.

**blue-dreamer** · 09-16-2010, 06:38 AM

I found the site very hard and confusing to use. smoseley makes some excellent points so I'll add a few more:

1. The visual "design" is very overwhelming, it's very "busy" and distracts from the important thing - your products

2. The general text colour is very hard to read (light grey on white)

3. Product detail pages seem incoherent, when scanning a product page it's hard to find specific pieces of information, probably due to a complete lack of sub headings.

4. FAQ page is a nightmare to find anything, again no proper headings for questions, where headings do exist the text colour is so light it's unreadable.
- BTW you have "Frequently asked questions" where are the "Less frequently asked questions"?

5. No immediately obvious information on what type of payments you take (I eventually found them via a small link at the bottom of the page).

6. No search facility

Bad news I'm afraid

**chrishirst** · 09-16-2010, 06:26 PM

Simple.

It's TOO pretty, sure it could win design awards and be a great showpiece for the designer/developer, but as an e-commerce site, it's too fussy, too busy and very confusing.

As a design for a instore or mail order brochure or even a "coffee table" catalogue, it's excellent.

As a website, it's a disaster area.

**TWD** · 09-17-2010, 01:27 AM

Looks nice but it doesnt look like an ecommerce site.

Compare your site to Amazon, for example.
Amazon doesnt try to look pretty, it tries to sell stuff

**WebhostGIANT-Rob** · 09-17-2010, 02:56 AM

I think that you need to analyze your visitors. How many pages doe they cover. Test your billing system. Perhaps they have made some attempts and it was broken.

**jessicaleahy** · 09-19-2010, 11:47 PM

The site is nice. But when I tried to make a purchase it left me confused.

**jessicaleahy** · 09-20-2010, 10:50 PM

And I forgot to mention that as a buying it is definitely a plus point for me if I can find an info about your address. It will make me trust the seller more.