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20 Comments

Horrible Conversion Rates

Hey Indie Hackers,
Most people on this platform run software based businesses but I am one of the few selling physical products. My company purplecookiecompany.com sells cookies online. However after more than 500 visits and 1k page views we have 1 sale. That is an abysmal conversion rate, if you guys would check out my website and see if there is anything that I am obviously doing wrong I would really appreciate it.

  1. 4

    Hey, thanks for sharing with us!

    My first thought is, why would I want to buy cookies online? What differentiates you guys from everyone else? Is there a "hook"? The "keeps you going" line doesn't really mean anything to me. A lot of food brands have a story of some sort to make them feel like a mom 'n' pop kind of company that you want to support and share with others. Something like "we use a recipe that my grandmother came up with decades ago".

    I think the page needs to tell me why your cookies are different and why I should go the extra mile of ordering online versus just picking up some cookies at the store next time I get groceries.

    The white text on the image background is a little bit hard to read as well. Maybe it would be useful to show three types of cookies at the top of the page and then one that says "our fan favorite" underneath. That'll give some indication that you sell a whole bunch of cookies and that there is one that everyone seem to favor. It might direct people to try it out.

    Hope this helps.

    1. 1

      Well i agree with the lack of a hook, but I think we need to emphasize how huge our cookies are ~6oz EACH. Also having a rotating fan favorite seems like a good idea. Thanks for the help!

      1. 2

        You mentioned the cookies are huge. I actually didn't get that. Maybe provide a comparison that shows how big they are? Put a fruit next to each of them (a banana for a cookie, an apple for another, etc). Be creative.

  2. 2

    Did you use cookies to try to retarget them?

    1. 1

      I don't really understand, if you are making a joke about website cookies that is funny though

  3. 2

    Hey Andrew, some comments that hopefully help :

    Landing Page

    • header image way too big and distracting, hard to see any of the words, also doesn't look that appealing? the pic you've chosen for the "Partner" page is way better, looks way cleaner, professional. I'd probably look at using a different picture for the front page.
    • the email popup comes too early, before I've had a chance to read anything or get any info I'm already being asked to put my email in, kind of a turn off
    • the copy : bit too wordy, ex of how I'd shorten Our fan favorite Coffee Cookie is perfect for both early breakfasts and desserts (sentence in purple banner needs this treatment as well)
    • send button is almost exactly same color as background
    • put some quotes and pictures of happy customers !
    • are you tracking button clicks and page views? are people actually clicking on "shop now" to get to your other page or are you seeing a high bounce rate from the landing page? I'm thinking you need to put more attractive content (nice clean images + descriptive text) on landing page, I don't find myself really desiring to go see what you're selling. what's the use case? paint a picture for me the user

    Cookie Pages

    • again the purchase button has a purple almost same as background
    • again, I think better images would do you wonders, maybe like a standard angle and lighting and stuff?
    • maybe star one and say "fan favorite"
    • I'm not gonna try it but look into whether you have an issue with your check-out process...look into your analytics to see if people are getting to your cart but then not buying for some reason. that'll give you a good signal

    Hope this helps!

    1. 1

      Hey man, did you view it from mobile or from a computer because anytime I show people that picture from a computer they always love it. It might not look so good on mobile though so I will take a look. I delayed the email pop up, I did not know it popped up so early so hopefully it is less annoying. We are trying to get pictures for branding/website but due to lack of sales we have a pretty small sample pool. We are having a terrible abandoned cart problem that we need to solve but it is quite complicated.

      1. 1

        I looked on my computer but maybe it’s just me then! It’s ur target consumers that count anyways. For the pictures, can you just make some and then have a photographer friend help take some nice clean photos of them, DIY hack together something that’ll give a nice background + lighting? As far as abandoned cart, I’d try to reach out to some customers directly and try to understand what’s going on, that’s probably the most direct way

  4. 2

    @Garberchov - there are quite a few issues that I can see immediately.

    1. On mobile, your cookie background hero image looks more like bbq ribs (that was my first reaction).

    2. You throw a pop-up for an opt-in immediately when I visit. That's really disruptive. Do you want me to learn about or buy your cookies or get my email?

    3. The imagery is not that compelling, especially on mobile.

    4. The white text is hard to read

    5. You don't lead with how your cookies are different. If I'm going to buy cookies online, they have to be different somehow.

    6. If you want to increase engagement, you should offer something of value or otherwise interesting. For example, you could lead with The Top 3 Reasons Our Cookies Will Blow Your Mind. Or, Get Your First Cookie Free.

    There's more too, but didn't want to overwhelm you with too much.

    I've been selling physical products online 12+ years, and the above is just what I came up with after 5 minutes on your home page only.

  5. 2

    For traffic, how are you driving people to the site? I'm wondering whether people are looking for cookie delivery and leaving because it's shipped. Maybe a good initial market would be people shipping cookies as a gift instead of people ordering cookies for themselves.

    You could try selling cookies in other venues. For example, you could sell food on Etsy, and it looks like tons of people sell cookies. May be worth setting up a few listings and a small daily advertising budget, and including a printed slip in order boxes pointing to your Squarespace page.

    As far as the website goes, I find it a little difficult to read everything in the homepage hero with the text over the cookie. The "Purple Cookie Company" logo looks harsh over the background on checkout, also. I'm colorblind, which may be a contributing factor

    Best of luck!

  6. 1

    You can use some Conversion Optimization tools to get more sales and Add some web personalization to different kinds of visitors will help your conversion rate.

    Skyrocket your online business get Lifetime access to the best CRO tool: 👉 https://saasmantra.com/deals/omniconvert

  7. 1

    If your thing is the size, you should make it stand out. This is your gimmick, in the best way possible - make it stick out and leverage it make sure your audience knows what makes you special. Besides, consider using a web personalization service to help you boost sales and improve conversion rates. My recommendation is twik simply because it does the job and you can see it up and running within 5 minutes, but really the market for personalization tools is so large and vast, it's extremely easy to have your website personalized these days.

  8. 1

    Your headline is The Biggest and Best Cookies You Will Find Anywhere, but the photos is too zomed in and lack of comparison so we can't see how big it really is.

    Take photos of your cookies side by side with a pen or a hand for comparison,
    Or take photo of your cookie and an eraser side by side so people have an idea of how thick it is.

    The last thing, if you can affords, make a video that make your visitor drools.
    With videos visitor have an idea how crispy or soft it is, etc

    Also as a side note, when i look at the photos i have question in my mind "Is this the actual cookies or stock photos?". Maybe you can add more personality by showing your face smiling holding cookies or cooking the cookies.

  9. 1

    Most points regarding unique value and hooks are covered.

    From my experience, getting people to buy food products from digital first is very tough. You need to address queries regarding taste, health and product quality in your landing page which is very physical experience heavy.

    You need to build trust before expecting people to purchase.

    500 visits and 1k page views is raw data. From where, they are arriving at your website! Their likes, dislikes fears will help you design landing page.

    Feedback from your customers/prospects is most important rather than from me or any other marketer. Instead of 10% discount, why don't you create simple typeform for feedback.

    1. 1

      you mean instead of putting in your email, put in feedback for the code? I am not really sure what you mean here but I really do think that feedback is important

      1. 1

        Out of 5000 visitors less than 3% will provide emails. Feedback response from email followup will get more 1 to 10% of 3% email signups.

        Get feedback first rather than emails to improve your conversions. By integrating with popup or any other method.

  10. 1

    Hey,
    looked at your website... I know a lot about cookies (not everything though) because I cook them on my own sometimes and I should say the cookie I see when your website loaded looks... hmm... strange to me. It doesn't look like cookie, it's rather a piece of loaf with melted chocolate, and there is something wrong with it. Too big? Too much chocolate? I don't know... also, when I clicked the Shop button for the first time, nothing happened.

    So, what I would do:

    1. Provide good, normal photos of cookies - not giant cookie, not broken one, but normal, alongside with something helping to understand its size (a spoon for example).
    2. Add something unique. Now, your cookies don't look better that anything I can grab in the nearest superstore, so why I would buy at you?
    3. Check all the buttons - if they are working correctly.

    Good luck!

    1. 1

      I have gotten quite a bit of feedback from this post saying to change that first picture and I think it is a good idea, and I am going to change it. No idea what is wrong with the buttons as I just checked and they all work so maybe that was just a bug from your side? We do need a clearer value prop. and I am going to change that as well

  11. 1

    You can try to setup some user recording tool like smartlook to check how people interact with your website. It can give you good inside about how to improve it.

    You can try to setup remarketing campaign via a facebook pixel, to see if it increase your conversion rate.

    1. 1

      We have had tons of abandoned carts, we have been using inspectlet and it just shows people put them in the cart and don't checkout :(

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