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im considering selling, either on a store such as volusion, or through my own website. With a reasonably well made page and limited advertising, and assuming customers will like my product, how easy will it be to get sales?
i know its a broad question, but maybe you could help me out with some examples, or by citing your own experiences with ecommerce.
im considering selling, either on a store such as volusion, or through my own website. With a reasonably well made page and limited advertising, and assuming customers will like my product, how easy will it be to get sales?
i know its a broad question, but maybe you could help me out with some examples, or by citing your own experiences with ecommerce.
thanks
It's not easy. Web sales are all about website ranking. When someone googles and a list of sites come up, the higher you are on the list the better your chances for a sale. If you are not on the first page, your chances drop dramatically. You can handle SEO yourself or you can pay someone. There is a lot of competition in this business. Lots and lots of home based businesses operating through a website.
That's probably a fair assessment. You'd be surprised how many are just part time businesses. Very few, even here on the forum, are doing this as a full time business. There are a million websites selling T-shirts.
I only sell shirts on teh internets. If you don't know what you're doing, getting sales is like squeezing blood from a stone. But if you do know what you're doing as far as making good designs that sell and getting people to come to your web site, then getting the sales is a fairly easy, reliable, steady thing. And not only that, the more work you do, the more sales you get. So it snowballs, and you can constantly and steadily increase your income! I love that part!
I used to think that it was a problem that there's many thousands of people who try to compete in the t-shirt business. But now I don't think it's really a problem, because probably 99% of those people are not good at it and also don't try too hard either. It's not really a matter of how many other people there are, it's much more how good you are, how much you know, and how hard you work.
Agree with other posters. We've had a website for three years now, know our niche market, and continue to work hard to make it a contributing part of our income.
We also do shows, pass out brochures, advertise on forums and other related sites and do a post card mailing in November to continue to drive business to the website.
I love our website business, but just like any other part of your business, you have to work at it. Can't expect to get many sales by just launching a website and waiting for customers.
Websites can be surpisingly hard work at times especially if your juggling other websites, school work and a social life. On top of that I'm trying to get t-shirt sales and website hits.
I think I launched too prematurely and with only 1 design I wasn't making it too easy for myself. Sure it can be easy selling 1 design to friends and families but once your trying to get others to by across the internet, can be a real pain.
I'd like to stress that it's really hard work, but also, extremely rewarding. It'll be really hard working for someone else if the opportunity ever arises. Good Luck.
How easy is it to get sales? 
