Why am I not making any sale?

[China Tea]

i have not made a sale since i opened my store last october 4. what am i not doing right? i read of so many internet success stories and now i am starting to wonder if all of such stories are exaggerated for a purpose.

Please give me some advice on how I can make a sale! my store is located at http://www.sh0pdrops.com.

Thank you.

[DSL Guy]

Hello China Tea,

It's been my experience of doing net business for a couple years that in order to get sales you need to build trust between you and your customers. Offer something that is of service and possibly free to do that. If your products are unique to your site, maybe you can point that out. Or if your products are at the lowest cost compared to x, y, or z site maybe you should point that out.

Also suggest to your visitors to bookmark your site for future ease of returning. I did that and am experiencing many return shoppers. Also do a study on internet best selling products. Where do your products rank on a scale of best selling products. I've gathered stats of sales by phone or face to face of my product. My online sales stats are right there with those percentages. So when I begin to wish I could do better, I remember I'm at a sales ratio equivalent to other marketing techniques.

Check out my site and you tell me if you would purchase there. If you would, why. If not, why not.

Best of Success China Tea

Added 10/25/04 11:24am CST USA

Something else to consider-

Doing business strictly online? Hardly any online business is 100% successful marketing solely on the internet. eBay does TV spots. Priceline.com does too. Many of these top internet retailers place ads in magazines and newspapers. Some even still mail out postcard direct mailers, or News Letters. You also need to diversify the pond you're fishing from. Are you telling your friends, family, or aquaintances about your web site? (Most of us really don't like doing that though ) Referrals will come from doing that.
Compare how you are marketing to how big name marketers of similar products are marketing.

Finally, attempt to establish yourself locally first. You will build credibility fast this way. Put your ad in local school event programs as a local sponsor. Many mothers will see it and if I'm correct women are your target audience.

Have a great day China Tea

PS- I'm a Minnesotan/Wisconsinite transplanted from Oxnard, California. California born and raised. I miss it a lot. ( not the freeway congestion or long lines in grocery stores or banks )
All of California was my territory before I decided to leave it all behind for the Great White North. I love it up here.

[robinev]

A quick glance at the site you posted with your message doesn't inspire me to buy anything from it. In fact, it's one of the last sites to which I'd submit my credit card number.

It's not really clear what you're selling on the site other than spammer utilities of various kinds. Your "product" seems to have something to do with personalized products of some kind. But when I tried to follow a link to find out what kind, I was (despite using a popup blocker) presented with two pages, one of which filled up my screen completely. When that happens, my response is to close out all open browser screens.

If you really want to sell to anyone other than a fool, I think that the first task would be to get rid of all the spam links.

[DSL Guy]

I would suggest also to use an invisible hit tracker. If you're using StatCounter and I think you are, you should make it invisible so no one really knows how many visitors you have.

By noticing that you have only 1000 plus hits to your site, it tells me you haven't been on the web long. It's better to let people wonder about that.

Also your return policy might just scare people off. I understand that you can't take back certain products and if I were thinking of buying I would change my mind about buying from your site and just go down to Kmart or Walmart.

[Ziploxx]

I must agree with Robinev and DSL Guy...Design is EVERYTHING in a storefront. Sell the products, not the site. I understand where you were going with the design you have, it just needs better pictures of the products and less advertisements for other people's websites.

Someone might look at your site and say, "Oh, there are some nice candles. I'm going to go back there after I look at this other section." Then they see a little link graphic to go to the Animation Factory website and they go play around there for an hour instead of shopping your site. It's nice to feature your artists and employees etc, but they should have a sepperate section quite away from the main store.

Try restructuring your site a bit. On the home page show off a 'Featured Item" of the week. Make the home page your 'base' and all of the shopping categories can be more detailed there, so that people know what you are selling instantly. People, unfortunatly are like sheep, and we have a very short attention span. Umm, what was I saying? (hehee) Think about this...You have been working with your site for months, putting it together, arranging graphics, making links and text etc etc. YOU know by heart everything that is at your site, but your guests have never been there before. Try to make things a little more obvious.

I really like some of the elements you have going though. Keep working with it China Tea. You'll get there.

Good luck.

[Ziploxx]

Addendum: After looking around your site again, I noticed better how things are structured. Seems to be structured by the maker or brand.

Also your hit counter is adding +1 for every page hit, and not for every visitor. I would definitly check your code and make an invisible counter.

[China Tea]

Your comments are all well-taken. I will take the necessary steps to undo the elements that are going against my marketing (if you can call it that). You are all so well-informed and awesome and I do feel so embarrassed about the "errors" in strategy. I am grateful that you responded and cared enough to point out the flaws which were obvious to everyone but me . . .

I will certainly redo my home page and other "distracting" links . . . Thank you, everyone!

[DSL Guy]

It's good you can take criticism constructively. Don't feel embarrassed or like you know nothing. I bet most if not all of us here have boobooed a few times. I still do. That's an opportunity for me to learn. And remember always -
" The dumbest question is the one you don't ask".

[Lizanderik]

i think dsl guy is right. the site looks great, but i am wary to buy from an unknown source. i do like the stuff though! don't feel too bad-i haven't sold anything in my cafe press shop either!

[DSL Guy]

Hi China Tea,

I was just visiting your shop. I noticed the statement across the top of the home page indicating how you just opened - "since October 4, 2004".

That's OK.

Have you put together all your meta tags for keywords, website title and description, abstract description? If you don't know ask your webmaster.
These are good when you submit your site to search engines and directories.

I noticed you're getting no page rank from Google. That means Google, if and when it crawls your site, is seeing your home page as of no or low importance because you apparently have more links (A) pointing to another webpage link (B). Each time (A) points to (B) it's a vote for (B). You should study up on this to get better Google page rank. If not you, then your webmaster. I will also later post a program you can try for no cost to you. Must go now. J.O.B. is calling.