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5 Comments

What did I do Wrong?

WOODnTIMES

Hi All -

Just finished an ad campaign on FB/Google/Instagram. Since sales in my store are
low to say the least, I tried FREE Plus Shipping to try and spur interest and sales. I
received appx. 26K impressions, 130 clicks BUT not one sale.

I'm an 83YO Newbie and opened my store on Oct last year. I have very few sales and tried everything I could possibly think of all to no avail. I opened my store because as a retiree I wanted to supplement my fixed income. I'm really discouraged now and getting close to closing down the store since I don't have a ROI and money is very tight for me. It took me 150 hours to open my store using the Shopify platform. I know I need lots of hand holding, but don't know where to get it since I can't afford to pay for the help.

Thanks.
Rypple333

  1. 3

    As a consumer looking at your Shopify store, the impression I get is that I am looking at low quality/cheap products. The product images feel very sloppy as there is no continuity in the presentation of the products. It feels like the equivalent of a mall kiosk/yard sale rather than a boutique. The good news is, that can be fixed.

    Here is a very similar offering (watches and sunglasses) that gives the impression that they provide a high quality product, true or not. https://www.mvmtwatches.com/

    Notice that they are selling similar products, minus the niche "wood" theme of your products. The site has a lot of similar features to yours, but they present them in a more clean and professional looking way. Maybe take some inspiration from their UI an update yours. One specific thing I would recommend is to ditch the italic text for all of your product list pages.

    Just my $0.02 - I am NOT a marketing expert

    1. 1

      To riff off Ken's comment, it's totally OK in marketing to find what others are doing that's working and emulate it! Don't copy the text they use but copy the layout, the structure, the flow through the website, the purchasing process, the number of emails sent and when.

      It's all fair game to emulate!

      To have success like the best emulate them first. Once you establish a baseline and are having real revenues feel free to experiment.

      I'm not in the market, but one thing I see a lot of great brands do, is the launch with one or very few products. And focus immensely on the branding and marketing of that singular great item.

      It helps make the brand feel small exclusive and an upstart. Rather than having 50 options to choose from.

      Then once you build an audience, start adding more products to cater to your existing customer base's demand for new offerings.

      Best of luck and I'm glad you posted here!

  2. 2

    Here are my recommendations:

    1. Change the name from WOODnTIMES to Wooden Times. That sounds classier and makes it easier to infer what you do.
    2. Scrap your logo. You can just use plain text for now, it won't hurt anything. Also, I'd remove ".com" from your logo (not really needed anymore).
    3. Your main pictures on the homepage are a little stretched and look pixelated. If you can take higher quality pictures, do that; if not, I would choose a different Shopify theme that doesn't have such large pictures on the homepage.
    4. 130 clicks coming from 20k impressions tells me that your marketing strategy might be a little off. Have you thought of trying to sell to a different audience (different ages, interests, etc.), or using different pictures when promoting, etc?
    5. You offer a ton of products right now. Why not offer a few of your favorite ones (something like 10 men's watches, 10 women's watches, and 10 sunglasses) and focus on promoting those? Pick the ones with the best photography, promote those on Instagram, and see where it goes.
    6. Your section "KIDZ STUFF" doesn't fit in with the rest of the brand. I would remove this section entirely for now. You could rebrand and add it back as "Kids" when the brand grows.

    If money is tight, I also suggest hanging out around IndieHackers to find more strategies for growth and monetization. You might be able to find interviews with other people who have Shopify stores. Or look at competitors to see what they're doing.

    Good luck.

  3. 1
    1. You need to get better quality pictures if you're going to use that spinner splash screen. A lot of them are blurry.

    2. You need to fix your fonts/colors on the spinner. They are barely readable. It might not seem like much, but this makes it seem like a company that doesn't know what they're doing. If you want to put text over images: you need BOLD and Outlines. Image memes are written with Impact Font, white with a black outline, because that is ALWAYS READABLE.

    3. The layout of products on the screen is haphazard, the products don't have a "flow" or a common look and feel. It looks like you just found a bunch of stuff to sell, and you threw it in a pile.

    4. For Watches and Sunglasses, everything needs to look very high end. No one wants a cheap watch, because no one wears a watch to tell time anymore. Sunglasses are the same: if I wanted cheap sunglasses, I can get them at the gas station. Your store needs to look more like Tiffany's, less like Wal-Mart.

    1. 3

      I'll keep going

      1. I understand the name because of all the wood made stuff, but if I didn't know what it was, I would think you were making a dick joke. If you went to "Wooden Times", It would be better.

      2. That Logo...First, it still has the Fiverr watermark on it! Come on, man. Get it together.

      Second, it screams "This is a cheap site I threw together". You have to push HIGH END. That looks like something I'd buy cheap party supplies from.

      You seem to have a cool product that I think people would be into, but the execution here is really lacking. I'm not trying to be mean, but it's important that you see these things. Don't spend any more money on advertising before you fix all this stuff.