Been open for a week, no sales. Is the website the problem?

438 Views 13 Replies 10 Participants Last post by AdvancedArtist, May 27, 2012

RoboGal

Discussion Starter · May 20, 2012

Our online shop has been open for almost one week now, and the only few sales we've made has been through family or friends, we haven't made any outside sales yet. To give a little background info, our graphic tshirt line spawned from an idea while making a blog post about a particular artist about 6 months ago. Our blog has been running for about a year and a half now, it's an entertainment, art, music, general geeky goodness site. (You can see it here, if you want an idea). We decided to commission several artists, most up-and-coming, to do a piece for the tshirt line.

Seeing as our blog was becoming more and more popular (we average about 3,500-4,500 views a day), we made the mistake of assuming that we'd have a small customer base already (obviously we didn't think that everyone, or even most people, would be customers). They've RT'd our tweets regarding the shirts, they've liked our FB shirt posts. The store averages about 250 views a day. But no one has bought.

We've submitted our store to places like Rumplo, reddit, Something Awful Forums, Buzzfeed, etc. On those forums we've included small discount codes as well. Nothing's working. I know it's only been a week, but not even 1 purchase? Is it our FAQ? The fact that we only ship within the US (only as of now though, which we've clearly noted on the site!)? That we only have two designs so far? Would it perhaps be a good idea to post the other designs as just have them marked as "Coming Soon"? (We can't print them until we've recouped the costs from printing the first two shirts, which we've done completely out of pocket, with no loans or help from others).

Any feedback, suggestions, or words of encouragement would be great! Thank you!

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Rodney

· #2 · May 21, 2012

We've submitted our store to places like Rumplo, reddit, Something Awful Forums, Buzzfeed, etc. On those forums we've included small discount codes as well. Nothing's working. I know it's only been a week, but not even 1 purchase?

It could be as simple as the people that are visiting your site through those places aren't the people who are interested in buying your t-shirts.

It could be that people aren't interested in buying a design with your website address printed on the front of the t-shirts. That's usually something that *really* popular blogs can pull off. On second look, it looks like the actual t-shirt doesn't have your website printed on the front, but your watermark on the main product image makes it look like it. I'd change that immediately to show an actual photo so that people know your website address isn't plastered on the front of the t-shirt.

It could be that the designs aren't compelling enough to make people want to pull out their wallet and buy.

It could be that you don't have their size (statistics show over 10% of shoppers where XXL or larger)

It could be that people don't have money this week.

I've read some statistics that most people need to view an ad at least 7 times before taking an action. A week really isn't that long.

How many people have actually visited the shop? Conversion rates for browsers to buyers is as low as 1%-2%. If your visitors are untargeted people no interested in buying, that number could be even lower.

the idea came sometime around November of last year, when working on a post about the art of Dan Hipp, one of us said, 'This guy's designs would make for some amazing shirts.' And that simple statement set a 6 month process in motion of working with a select group of artists to create a Tshirt line.

You may have misjudged the interest in people wanting to buy t-shirts with those designs.

A Facebook like for a picture posted is not the same as actual interest in spending money to buy a t-shirt. 4 Facebook likes really isn't a good gauge that a t-shirt is worth printing. If you are getting a LOT (10+) of people commenting saying "where can I buy this t-shirt?" and "can I preorder this t-shirt", THEN you've got a better barometer of t-shirt interest.

I'd suggest following up with a comment on this Facebook post from a month ago to let those people know who have commented and liked that post that the t-shirts are now printed and available for sale:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?....281390431877125.86567.167809746568528&type=1

People may be coming to your site to read your blog posts, but not really interested in buying t-shirts. You have to really put yourself out there that you are now selling t-shirts. A banner off to the side and one blog post might not be enough.

There could be a lot of reasons why you haven't sold a t-shirt in a week.

The real question is, what other marketing plans did you have in mind to help get those t-shirts sold. It's not always as easy as a cool t-shirt design. The right advertising and marketing can be the difference between a cool t-shirt sitting on the shelf of selling like tasty pancakes.

Does Hipp have fans? Does his fanbase know that his artwork is now available for purchase on your site?

You may want to clean up your bigcartel images so that the actual photographs of the t-shirts are more prominent.

Lose the watermarks (they probably aren't necessary for a photo and can lead to some confusion).

Make the product photos bigger on the homepage and product pages.

Link the banner on your homepage to the actual page on your site with that t-shirt design for sale instead of making the user click from the shop homepage to get there. You enticed them with a nice photo of one particular design, don't send them to the main page and make them click again...especially when you only have 2 t-shirts to choose from. Better to increase the chances of closing that sale of the t-shirt design you featured.

With only 2 t-shirt designs, you could create a banner for each design and rotate it in that same spot on your homepage and link it directly to the add to cart page for that design.

Add information about the t-shirt quality (are they soft, what brand?), printing, shipping costs, sizing to the add to cart page so people don't have to click around to find it (or be surprised by shipping costs).

What is your return policy? You have to earn the trust of potential shoppers to get them to spend their hard earned money on your t-shirts. Who are you, how do they contact you? Do you have a phone number? How do they know you're not a fly by night operation that will take their money? Sounds like a simple question, but indicators like phone numbers, addresses for returns, return policies, etc can help act as trust signals to potential shoppers.

Why would someone want to buy your t-shirt? How does it benefit them? That could be added to the shirt description on the "add to cart" page. Will it make them cool? Is it limited edition? Will it help support their favorite blog? Don't make them click away from the "add to cart" page to get all the information they'd need to be compelled to buy.

Hope this helps some

There are a LOT of great marketing tips that have been shared here in past posts that might help as well: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/tags/marketing-tips/

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Reactions: 5

safetyimprints

· #3 · May 22, 2012

Can you tell if people are actually going to your store and looking at your shirts?

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selanac

· #4 · May 22, 2012

It look like you're only selling one t-shirt. Not sure if that's the case, but if it is, try changing the colors of the t-shirt with the same design. Mix it up a bit.

Try posting on sites for other things besides those sites. Maybe an artist side or two and put your website in the profile.

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Sport T

· #5 · May 22, 2012

With only two shirts available your market is very narrow and limited even with your blog contacts.

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EnMartian

· #6 · May 22, 2012

I looked at the site and then I looked at the blog. The first thing I noticed was the disconnect. The blog is big, full of things to look at, cool pictures, has a black color scheme, is visually interesting. The store has none of that. I'm all for simple, but this looks like you guys just threw up a store on a whim. It would probably help if the store was more of a visual match to the website.

Also, there's no size chart or return policy both of which can help make people more comfortable with making a purchase.

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atomicpress

· #7 · May 22, 2012

I like seeing the actual shirt itself (with the print) so that I may gauge the size of the print. And as previously mentioned... drop the watermarks.

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RoboGal

Discussion Starter · #8 · May 25, 2012

Rodney said:
It could be that people aren't interested in buying a design with your website address printed on the front of the t-shirts. That's usually something that *really* popular blogs can pull off. On second look, it looks like the actual t-shirt doesn't have your website printed on the front, but your watermark on the main product image makes it look like it. I'd change that immediately to show an actual photo so that people know your website address isn't plastered on the front of the t-shirt.

You're right, they are watermarks. My partner added them because was concerned about design theft. We've always added them to our original photographs on our blog, but I think you're right, they aren't needed for the shirt photos.

Rodney said:
It could be that you don't have their size (statistics show over 10% of shoppers where XXL or larger)

Funny you mention that, we've already had two people note that they would have bought, had we carried 4XL. It's something that we'll definitely look into, but we just can't afford to go make a bunch of 2XL-4XL size shirts at the moment. Lesson learned, I guess.

Rodney said:
The real question is, what other marketing plans did you have in mind to help get those t-shirts sold.

We're going to be putting together a really cool, eye-catching flyer or postcard, and post them up in a few places in town (a college town, which is our demographic (ages 18-35)), like a few arcades, among other places. Other than that, we're still trying to figure it out.

Rodney said:
Does Hipp have fans? Does his fanbase know that his artwork is now available for purchase on your site?

All of our artists have a fanbase, but someone like Hipp definitely has a pretty large fanbase. As part of the commission (a comparable fee plus a free tshirt), we asked them to do at least one blurb about it, either on their site (preferred), tweet, or FB post. Some artists have been good about it, others not. Not much we can do about it, we're not gonna force them (you'd think they want to, though?).

Rodney said:
Add information about the t-shirt quality (are they soft, what brand?), printing, shipping costs, sizing to the add to cart page so people don't have to click around to find it (or be surprised by shipping costs).

I'll definitely add a sizing chart and return policy. As far as the tshirt quality, I can definitely put a better description, but my partner doesn't want us to put the brand name because he doesn't want competitors to know what we use (it's nothing super fancy, FWIW). At this stage in the game, I don't think that's a concern, but he does. What do you think?

Rodney said:
Who are you, how do they contact you? Do you have a phone number? How do they know you're not a fly by night operation that will take their money? Sounds like a simple question, but indicators like phone numbers, addresses for returns, return policies, etc can help act as trust signals to potential shoppers.

We have our contact page, and I put my email address all over the About Us and FAQ. We don't have a business phone line, and I'm not particularly comfortable having our cell #'s public. Is a phone number really that necessary for a small company?

Thank you so much for all of your help! You gave lots of useful advice, I have a better idea now how I need to tweak the site and our approach.

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RoboGal

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 25, 2012

Sport T said:
With only two shirts available your market is very narrow and limited even with your blog contacts.

Agreed. We put up the other designs, and marked as "Coming Soon" (we can't print until we've recouped some costs from printing the first two). Do you think that might help?

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RoboGal

Discussion Starter · #10 · May 25, 2012

safetyimprints said:
Can you tell if people are actually going to your store and looking at your shirts?

Yeah, we average 100-250 views a day at the store's site. We can also tell which designs get more views than others.

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charles95405

· #11 · May 25, 2012

no phone number given...and I would never order if I only had an email address...so you have to decide...are in in the biz or not....also couple have mentioned the price... I also think your price is a bit...even for california

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SoloStampede

· #12 · May 25, 2012

Your prices are fine for what they are. But you store does need a lot of work and to add to the professionalism, I would recommend pointing your store at your own domain. store.awesome-robo.com/. Having your store redirect to a 3rd party's sub-domain, is a tad unprofessional looking in my opinion.

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RoboGal

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 27, 2012

SoloStampede said:
Your prices are fine for what they are. But you store does need a lot of work and to add to the professionalism, I would recommend pointing your store at your own domain. store.awesome-robo.com/. Having your store redirect to a 3rd party's sub-domain, is a tad unprofessional looking in my opinion.

Not trying to argue, because I'm definitely here to get advice, but how is having a Big Cartel site any more unprofessional than Etsy?

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AdvancedArtist

· #14 · May 27, 2012

OK I am goona be hard here.. All I see is see is 5 graphics that look like posters. Put those on some models or t-shirt comps. I am a passer by and I can not see myself wearing a poster. There are some free t-shirt comps on my site they might help. Also what is the message? Awesome ROBO should be pimping a t-shirt with one of your designs like he is all the fashion flame.

Your header is way to big and does not tell me anything except? What am I doing here? I can not connect that to hey these are cool t-shirts.

So in short the set up is really disconnected from the objective..

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