Site go live without full produt lines

[Runner]

Hello I'm just after some feedback. I am building my first site and as a starter have 800 product lines to load. This will take some time. I am considering going live with some products and then continue to add products ongoing.

Someone suggested to me to put a message on my home page to say something like: "...the site is new, we are continuing to add products daily, please contact us if you cannot find what you are looking for, please come back etc etc..."

Is this a good idea? Will visitors just look somewhere else anyway?

I will not be adding empty sections with comments like "coming soon" as I know how annoying this is when I have found this on some sites.

[Sean Williams]

I'm in a similar situation and have put the site live - better to get those search engines working asap I think.

[PeterThake]

Perhaps it depends on the products but I'd go live now if the site looks ok. I did this and added products as I got them in stock and it worked fine. Just as long as the site does not look half-baked. Avoid 'empty shelves' . Hide product lines that are not ready to go on sale yet.

The 'big bang' approach is all very good but you can wait too long and you hit the 99% complete scenario where you never quite finish! Get it live and get some money coming in. Plus once you are live you will learn a lot about selling online and you may change the way you do things.

Is this a good idea? Will visitors just look somewhere else anyway?

If you have no site then visitors are guaranteed to go elsewhere ;-)

[jont]

I would not bother with the message but just add and upload as quickly as you can.. even a couple of times a day to get the new stuff there.

I would add a product to the different sections and then come back and add the others around the existing.. as a section relates to a page on the internet this will help speed getting your pages indexed and then you can flesh them out as time allows.

People will not bother to email or phone if they can't find what they are looking for .. it is too much hassle when they can find it on Google .. this will change when the full range of products is there and they can see what sort of thing is on offer.

[RuralWeb]

Go live as soon as possible - Google likes sites that are being worked on.

Best of luck

[Runner]

Thanks everyone. Good advice. A big help as always.

[danlou84]

Ps.. Psychologically you should never say something like please come back.. ever.. for obv reasons.. Something like..

due to our product rotation - stock is added and replaced on a daily basis.. if their is anything you require that isnt currently available please contact us and one of our sales team will be happy to help.