How to attract/get more people to buy from your online store? - Page 6

FF Fashion

Hello duriancake,

For some strange reason, I can't seem to quote and reply to your message above. So read here... this is for you....

OMG! You are gonna be real mad with FrouFrou for the feedback.... some comments may sound blunt / offensive but hopefully no hard feelings on your part....

1. Your duriancake ID coupled with your "everything's pretty wonderfully yummy" concept while special, is not necessary ideal for fashion & accessories. I was thinking you are in F&B trade! Also, going forward, will all your products be food related becos if not, you are limiting yourself with your 'pretty wonderfully yummy' concept.

2. High traffic.... while it doesn't necessary guarantee sales, high traffic means higher potential sales. If traffic is alright or if traffic is high and sales are no good, then this spells problem. Also to note, online traffic count does not always reflect the true traffic count. Your competitors may be checking out on your blog everyday so you think there's traffic ya?

3. Perhaps questions to ask yourself is "is there a demand for my product?" Do a quick survey. Take your products and show them to your friends and neighbours and see how many will be interested to buy. Alternatively, try a poll if Pushcart Forum allows. Sometimes even if a product is cheap, customers may not buy them if there's no need for it or they simply don't like it. This is the real world. Demand vs Supply.

4. Home page - In my opinion, your home page is totally wrong! Imagine entering your website and the 1st thing to read about is an apology... and remember, shoppers didn't visit your website to give you feedback on fonts, colors etc, they are there to shop! Yes, you can ask for feedback but do that on some other sections, not in the homepage.

5. About page - You got customers all excited about products for him and her but in actual fact you only have some earrings and bracelets. Do not kick start if you are not ready. First impression counts. With so little items, customers are unlikely to return.

6. About page - "Stay tuned because Cherryblosson Town will bring to you any pretty wonderfully yummy things that you can find in any other typical towns" If it's something that we can find in any other typical town, I reckon we don't need to visit your website, we can buy them anywhere.

7. Sakura Friends - Good ideas but to be entitled to that 15% requires a min $40 purchase. At this stage, it doesn't look at all attractive becos with your product base, to chalk up $40 purchase seems rather difficult. Implentation of promotions and sales require planning too!

8. Order form - Clear cut. See if you can do away with pasting x times for x quantity ordered.

9. Contact Us - Is 3 email accounts really necessary? As a shopper, I wish for 1 point of contact ie 1 email 1 correspondent. Hassle free, quick & fast. And 3 working days seem very long considering your products are mere accessories.

10. Terms of Use/ FAQ - I understand that each section serves it's own purpose but I think there's some repetition... I mean long and wordy repetition. See if you can simplify the info.

11. FAQ - "However, there is no guarantee for any exchange,refunds", "however we hope that you can understand that even offline stores can miss out some defected stocks"...... Be careful with phrasing. Negative statements tend to turn customers away if not reduce their confidence in your online store. Proper phrasing requires skills. Study how others do up their website.

Bottomline is.... I think you need to relook at your products and your target consumer groups. If initial sales are no good, it's only natural for confidence level to drop, you are not going to survive long so prove us wrong .... Nothing is impossible, only thinking makes it so....

You still have a long way to go..... Good luck

duriancake

Hi FF fashion, no worries. i post it so i can improve.

though it's quite *ouch ouch ouch* but.. your feedback are very much appreciated! haha..

"everything's pretty wonderfully yummy" it came from pretty, wonderful and yummy things.. so is 3 different things.

but since it can let you have the wrong idea, i'm sure others will as well..

thanks alot!

FF Fashion

Excellent I'm sure to date there's no wasted effort on your part because it's a learning experience and only those who have gone through will know and understand. Even I myself am still learning but my biggest problem is plain laziness I can be here making suggestions to fellow forummers but some times I'm juz too lazy to "beautify" my album & pics

duriancake

thats encouraging though i must say your first comment was really quite a hard 'slap'! hahahha. am working on changes now already!

anyway, i've been wanting to visit your site.. and other's.. but i cant access profile.

FF Fashion

So is this Jack we are talking to?

First of all, thumbs up for My Cafe Adventures. It takes a lot of courage to quit a full time job, step out of your comfort zone, to take that challenge and be an entreprenuer. Well done

FrouFrou is all about ladies fashion, so am not in the best position to advise F&B trade but when forummers attention their postings to me, I will try my best to respond, so do take my feedback with a pinch of salt given our different trade and the fact that I don't in fact operate online but in physical storefront

Here we go.... nice website you have....

1. When I first enter your website, I like it's simple professional look but as I scroll down......."facebook", "******", "My forum", "Guest Book", "Testimonial"... too many "distractions". Are all these necessary? In my opinions, "Coffee at your party", Customers' testimonial and My forum are the key ones.

2. "facebook", "******", "My forum", "Guest Book", "Testimonial"... are of different banner shapes n size (or whatever you call those boxes/links).... this makes the page now looks less professional. Top half looks good, bottom half no no... I'm not sure if you understand what I'm trying to say. The banner for your partners (sam's deli, virtual office etc) can be of different size but they have their own signage but for stuff like testimonial, my forum, etc, see if you have a way to simplify/standardize them. Sometimes keeping it simple may be the best way to go.

3. "every cuppa tells a story".... nice one but that filter thingy doesn't look very nice leh. I actually like the "cup & saucer" border more.... makes me feel more like wanting to drink coffee... Your signage needs to be attractive ya?

4. Products and Prices - As you introduce the products, suggest you include the prices. I keep wondering where are all the prices until I come across your order form. But when I reach the order form, for someone who is not familiar with all these coffee brands, I keep having to refer back to the product pages.

5. While the website is important esp when it captures your customers' testimonial, as yours is F&B trade, customers really need to be able to smell n taste your products, I would suggest after you quit your job, do what you need to do for the website and get out there and do even more outside your website. I'm sure you already have all your plans lined up eg tie-up with more delis, advertising, promotion, marketing..... blah blah blah

Like I said, nice website you have. Good stuff. Clear cut and to the point. you have come so far, juz continue to look ahead, your business may become the next Starbucks, Coffee Beans or Breadtalk!

It's getting late.....I better stop here before I start talking/writing rubbish ....

FF Fashion

If you go to "BIZHUB" - "Retail Listings" - "Wholesale Suppliers" section, goto page 4, you can see FrouFrou's posting. From there, there's a link to our photo album.

Wahaha.... sori to disappoint but there's nothing fantastic in ours. Purpose of our album is to serve as a general guide for our wholesale and retail buyers so that they know what are the latest designs we are carrying. We usually recommend buyers to come down to our store to view the apparels and for retail buyers to try for the best fit, hence you don't get much details in the album but we always welcome enquiries from everyone.

FF Fashion

Juz one more point to make... actually it came to mind last nite but as I've already switched off my laptop, so I thought I will do it today.

Before you make any changes, might be a good idea to just sit back and rethink your entire business plan & business concept. you may think yours is only a small online business but if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Any changes that you do now are likely to be piece-meal, targeting only selective section of your website but you are very much working in the "pretty wonderful yummy" concept.

Even if you are sure this is the concept you want to adopt, I would suggest you take a pen and paper and jot down all the changes & improvements you want to make, look at it in totality before you hit the button.

Am I making sense?

duriancake

yups.. certainly make sense. i'm actually making offline changes to ideas and plans, but i feel it's necessary to make some slight changes to the site, like removing repeition, rephrasing, making it clearer etc.. at least make the site less hostile or messy.. hope to improve the look and feel so that impression won't be as bad! haha..

hope i'm doing the right thing though. =/

FF Fashion

Hi Duriancake,

I have seen those changes you made. Nice ones!

It's a good idea to introduce "Sakura Friends" in the home page esp now that you offer free membership with ANY purchase! See if you can make those pics bigger. And there's a missing word .... "Make any purchase and get to be Sakura Friends! Hurry now before promotion ends."

And I like the revised Contact Us page with that drop-down box for selecting the appropriate subject matters.

Perhaps you want to share with your customers why you have chosen this interesting yummy concept of fashion accessories, and you can do that via the About page.

Work on providing customers with more unqiue and interesting products and yup, see if you can get your name out there.... search engine, forums, whatever....

duriancake

thanks!

actually i was thinking if i should replace the yummy word.. though it's catchy but its misleading. many link it to food even though it could mean, "very pleasing to the senses..", "extremely attractive or appealing." etc..

it is especially misleading when place together as pretty wonderful yummy.. maybe some simplier words like fantastic, etc are better.. still working on it..

though explaining on 'About' page works.. but anyone who first see it won't know and any misleading is not good i guess.. its like if they think it's food or what and they are not interested, they won't even end up at about page right?