stepping down from ecommerce
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- doesnotexist0
keeping an ecommerce store up and running is the job for a group of people, if she's trying to do this on her own maybe that's the issue here?
coming up with new content, constantly putting new items up for sale, it's all part of this day to day thing. does she realize it?
agencies exist for the sole reason to solve problems like this.
maybe she needs a good ol' benchmarking and some trend research.
- ETM0
I am a little confused though why local, walk-in traffic cannabalized all the online sales. Was there no effort to take advantage of the online ability to target customers outside the store's geographic area?
- stoplying0
I had a very similar situation where I set up an ecom site using Volusion that she could manage. She never really got the hang of it, and it essentially flopped as well. But what she did do a couple of times was have in-store parties in the evening to promote new stuff, and the girls that friended her on Facebook got invited.
She did really well with sales once the women were in her shop, and had a glass or two of wine.
Maybe just promote the in-store parties through her site, then take photos of the event and post em.- yes, her parties do well. we want to bring the blog and other aspects forwardfourth
- zarkonite0
It doesn't sound like the online store is part of her business model.
Keep pushing the FB/Instagram thing if it's working, they're both great ways to stay in touch with your customers for low traffic boutiques... maybe she can sell end of lines at discounted rates online but it needs to be differentiated in some way... Personally I would drop it, it's been a year and it hasn't worked, time to adapt or die.
- exactly, but we're also looking for a way to get more people to her site to increase her web presence.fourth
- ETM0
Did you ever try to capture her customers on-line with something like a newsletter that would provide weekly or monthly exclusive, on-line only discounts or offers? Encourages the online purchase and it helps built a more dedicated customer base (if they really like the products. It may be a small audience, but repeat customers are often more valuable.
- fourth0
vax, no online advertising anywhere. a little promotion through local newspapers, online articles, giveaways, etc. I am not a SEO guy but I did the best I could. She did gain a bigger web presence, and her page does get traffic, but dips when it comes to the ecommerce side.
Her main way of promoting the product was through social media, fb and instagram mainly. She'd link to the store and her customers would simply bypass it and come in to buy. so I've been looking at ways to increase this occurrence.
- vaxorcist0
hmmm... how was your client promoting the site? or were you doing some SEO? Did it get much traffic? It sounds like your client is giving up based on very little info, in part because they're more used to selling in person and may not like computers much....
- fourth0
No the problem isn't at my end. Truth is that I can count how many times she's sold something online on one hand. It's that bad. I can analyze traffic but there isn't much to analyze- and it's not accurate because she became lackadaisical when it came time to picture, inventory, and describe items. Considering she pays me to take the pictures of items, and has to pay a monthly fee for the cms she's been losing money.
We agreed it was either pay someone to do all and focus on ecommerce. She does not want to delve completely into ecommerce. It sounded romantic and easy at first but her bread and butter is selling in the store. So we decided a switch to something more easily up-dateable and less time consuming. A solution that can get more people into the store buying. I just don't know what the clear solution is.
- omg0
make it sexier!
- yurimon0
Prob best to analyze the traffic to her site and what people are doing. also how many people are clicking on to buy when items are sold out.. Also good to consider the numbers on the amount that are sent away from being sold out. and estimate those sales clicks as potential sales. gives you a $ amount of what business people consider a loss from inability of for filling a demand. As a web strategy also good to think about her niche market and needs of that demographic and her vision for future growth.
It might not be a bad thing. just shes not able to predict web sales or numbers on websales. seems like from what your saying
- yurimon0
Prob best to analyze the traffic to her site and what people are doing. also how many people are clicking on to buy when items are sold out.. Also good to consider the numbers on the amount that are sent away from being sold out. and estimate those sales clicks as potential sales. gives you a $ amount of what business people consider a loss from inability of for filling a demand. As a web strategy also good to think about her niche market and needs of that demographic and her vision for future growth.
It might not be a bad thing. just shes not able to predict web sales or numbers on websales. seems like from what your saying
- these are all good points I will look through her analytics. the only thing I've looked at is # of salesfourth
- trooperbill0
id suggest having limited run of online only stock... or buy to order
- detritus0
Sounds like the problem's not at your end.
What steps is she taking to ramp up production and decrease turnaround times?
- fourth
So I have a client who runs a small clothing boutique store. A year ago I built her an ecommerce shop. She carries a small # of stock on hand to keep things fresh. So what was happening is by the time she got everything entered online she'd be sold out of the product.
Basically the ecommerce store flopped. It took too much time and besides: women like to shop for clothing in real life. Not online.
So we are back to the drawing board. I was wondering if any of you had any ideas. She's able to drum up business via instagram, fb, twitter (in that order). Basically I'd like to push her blog up front, and have a system were her top customers can see the latest product and have it held for them at the store. Any ideas, examples, thoughts?