www.virgofashions.com sales etc

[virgofashions]

Hi there everyone, My website has been up and runing for over three month now, I have had some good weeks and some bad weeks, currently a bad week. I was wondering if the other websites using actinic could let me know on average how many sales a week they get as I average 0-1 on a bad week and 1-5 on a good week. I keep turning the 10% reduction on and off depending on how low sales are. Just need a little advice from those of you who have been running a while so i know what to expect

I have had a lot of work done on the website since it was first made, Ive changed a bit of the layout using dreamweaver and a big thanks to norman for his great work on the website too with the updates and currency converter etc. Let me know what you guys think of the site and if theres any way to improve. My pictures are half way finished in trying to have no border around them so they blend in with the background.

Regards james@www.virgofashions.com

[Mike Hughes]

Hi James,

Maybe this would have been better posted in the 'ecommerce business' or 'any other business' topics ?

the absolute number of sales isn't a useful measure to compare for a website as it depends upon many other things such as the number of visitors and where they're coming from.

Have you any figures on your sales to visitors percentage (also called the conversion rate)?

See Bruce's post in this thread http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=13203 for a good link to typical conversion rates for different market segments.

Mike

[pinbrook]

I picked on this page at random - why wouldn't I buy any of these products?

There's no product info, what are they made of leather, manmade, where are they made ie are they US?

what's with the abbreviations?

BS LACE UP BK CREPE SOLE BOOT
SHU MUCK LUCK FUR BOOT
BS PINK FLOW EMB COWBOY BOOT

my interpretations of the abbreviations

BS - Bull*
BK - Black?
SHU - ?
MUCK - farmers yard?
LUCK - you'll be lucky if I order
FLOW - rivers flow * edit just realised that this is flowers
EMB - embroidered

Why have you got NorMenu on top of actinic navigation?

[virgofashions]

?

Hi there thanks for the replies. I was just wondering what you meant by( Why have you got NorMenu on top of actinic navigation?) I know the descriptions are a bit bad but we have so many styles in each week, About 30 that we need to use our own abbreviations to distinguish between the many styles we have, Im not sure if that could be changed.

Also I should write more descriptions under the styles but Im a one man band and i find it so hard to take the pictures then convert them to photoshop plus all my other non website duties. Maybe one day we will be able to afford someone to do it but at the moment with sales so low theres not the money available.

Thanks for the feedback though, Its very much appreciated. Please keep it coming.

Regards james@virgofashions.com

[DaveT]

Hi there

Here are my thoughts which I hope may assist:

1) left menu - inconsistent navigation from store. Do you really need the Nortree menu which ends up duplicating the fixed nav categories?
2) Front page - make your point immediately - what reason do I have to check out the site? What is Virgo's purpose? 'Welcome' pages are unneccessary - get the shopping part straight away unless you have a specific offer to highlight or similiar.
3) Where were the prices? Took me a while to locate. Put the price beside the button. Is it the same price per size? You could have drop down boxes for colours.
4) Large pictures on main pages may be slow to download on slow connections - can you focus on main image and then show details in popup?
5) 'Emergency' - what does it mean? How do I take advantage of this service (I know it's in the text after a while). Make 'Express Delivery' with really quick ordering system (may need custom building?) outside of Actinic - the focus being on 'what makes this service better than popping down to the High Street?'
6) Your stores - first of all the maps are illegible. Would you want to make it 'Store Finder' or 'Store Lookup'?
7) Who is your target customer? Are they price conscious? Then you would want to draw attention to the 10% off or other features that are attractive to them?
8) Contact and feedback from users - how can I contact you from the Emergency or Home Pages? Can a user give you instant feedback?
9) Search engines - you have only 1 page listed in Google's index - click here. You should apply the 'Dept's' and 'Designer's links on the front page navigation and make them static ie instead of 'www.virgo..../ss00001.pl?....' code it to point directly to 'http://www.virgofashions.com/acatalog/Online_Catalogue-Departments.html' so the search engines can get into the store. You might need to insert the menu links by hand to 'override' Actinic.

If you would like any further help, please let me know via the forum email.

I hope this helps and I haven't upset you! You have a good store and there's lots of potential.

[pinbrook]

The whole point of an ecommerce shop is to make it a pleasure for your customer. You seem to have taken the opposite approach in as far as the site is written to your convenience.

You may be using abbreviations that suit you, but if your target market doesn't know what they stand for they aren't going to buy.

Given that you have a lack of time you would be better off concentrating your efforts on the best sellers. ie list 50 products in full with good photos, descriptions and product names. Then build on the rest of the store.

Remember who you are building the store for....

[fleetwood]

James
By the sound of it you are stretching yourself too far. On the assumption that the 3 stores plugged on the site are your own, do you really have time to run an internet site as well?
Maybe you should consider restricting the site to something manageable to start. If there are so many new products that you can't do them all justice, then don't try to. As mentioned above, restrict your offering to best sellers or internet specials to start with.
With only 1 or 2 orders a week at persent, I would seriously consider pulling the website in the short term, working out your startedgy in a form that you can cope with, then relaunching with a proper schedule that you can maintain.
In my books, the important aspects of ecommerce (in order of importance) are:
1) Customer Service (turn those orders around fast, answer all enquires quickly)
2) Site Usability (speed, ease of use, bags of relevant info)
3) Product range (offering something that the competition dosen't)
4) Price
Note how low price is.

As far as promotion goes, if I was you I'd flog the hell out of your ready made customer base - your existing bricks and mortar customers. Make sure the website is on all the bags, and add special offer coupons for the site to every customer.
The fashion game is highly competitive, and the big names (Next etc) will beat you hands down at the internet game unless you have something different to offer (I'd forget trying to compete on price).
You'll find it easier and cheaper to get your existing customers to buy more via your site, as they already know and trust you.

Hope some of that helps.
If you can get the site right and back it up with the service there is business out there. Our net sales now account for 25% of our overall sales after 2 1/2 years on the net and 20 years as a shop.
Good luck

Martin

[jont]

Hi James,

looks like you have been busy with the layout and look of the shop since the last time the girlfriend and I took a look but you don't seem to have implemented any of the feedback you were given over a month ago when you asked this forum to take a look and several members made suggestions for you - which are primarily what Pinbrook has pointed out again on this new thread.

If you are really struggling to list 30 new items per week then don't. Focus on what is likely to sell mail order and not what people will prefer to come into your shop and try on and see in person. A lot of your products are geared towards a sepcific market and most may prefer to visit the shop than buy mail order.

I would try and focus more on the content now rather than the technical aspects and hopefully drive sales further along for you

[TraceyHand]

I'm going to echo what jont has said.. we did go through all this when you asked us before
As a clothing retailer myself, I can tell you that people will NOT buy if they don't know what they are buying!
Give yourselves identifiable stock codes (my stock refs are in 4 parts... tr-dp-bk-14 is TRousers-Dorothy Perkins-BlacK-size 14. If I have more than one style of DP black trousers, then they go 14/2, 14/3 etc)
That way I know that I am looking for a pair of DP black torousers in size 14 when I'm picking it! if you follow me!
Then, you can concentrate the website on display ONLY what the CUSTOMER needs to see. Product descriptions. Style, fabric, length etc. Nobody will buy otherwise (well, OK, some folk are but I have to wonder if they are store customers who may already have an idea what they are buying?)
Your website is for your customers, not you. Leave the information you need in your office/filing/admin side of the catalogue system (have a huge product reference chart if need be. I used to need one to start with so I could identify the codes properly!)
Also, I know what you mean about the product additions. As I sell one-fof items mostly, I have to add anywhere from 25-50 items a week (complete with product descriptions and a photo for every item!) OK, so my photography leaves a lot to be desired at times but my customer sappreciate that time I take to give a thorough description of each item and they order with confidence.
Sorry if the responses to this post seem harsh but it's a harsh reality that, unless you start building the site for your customers, you aint gonna have any!
Tracey

[TiggyPig]

You could get your models to smile a bit, it's all about selling the product and half the girlies on there look as miserable as sin.

Take a peep at another online clothes catalog and see how they do it and have the models smiling.

Just a thought.

[B_Online]

There are many things to improve on this site, amongst all the valid SEO advice given above and from the last month.

I have noticed if any potential customers do finally make it to your site, one of the first things they would notice is the un-professional photography, when selling fashion clothes, one of the things people want to see, is how well they look on other people, but you have beautiful models and some great looking products all have been let down by poor photography…people want to think they are buying something that will make them look great, but your pictures don’t look good at all. Failing this people want to see the quality of the product as best you can in pictures, a close up of the product maybe, without the use of a model. Remember you are competing with people who would normally go to town see something they like, that feels good and can try on. That is not to say there isn’t a market for this, because there is, just look at all the big catalogue companies, so if you can compete or find a slice of their share then you will be fine.

It would be a good idea to look at other shoe stores and see how they do it, or even look in catalogues, if you can’t use similar poses or don’t have the equipment or facilities, try no models and just show the shoe on a stand or box covered with a white cloth and white background… other photographs on your site are dull, wrong composition, even out of perspective…maybe use (as another member said), a mannequin. I seem to be looking at your images and thinking to myself,”what’s wrong with this picture?” rather than ‘WOW’ that looks good!

In your pictures I can see harsh shadows, skirting boards, curtains that look like they should not be there, Keep the images simple and bright, if you need to use a model, you should be able to see their eyes sparkle with the correct pose and LIGHTING is crucial.

If you can’t emulate a similar standard of what the big companies do when they use models. Then don’t use models, do with out and concentrate on the products and getting the composition and especially the lighting right. Some models look uncomfortable and this can be seen in some shots. You really need to research your trade and see what is working for the big companies; if they are spending thousands on professional photography then you should at least try to emulate what works for them, I don’t mean spend £1000s, I mean get a digital camera and try with your products different poses and settings on your camera until they look on par with the images used by them.

I have over 25 years experience with photography and I am talking just from that point of view, photography is VERY important when selling products and if your products looks good then you have a far better chance of selling something that looks good than what you have on show.

Sorry for the long winded reply, I was bored at work and it is just a bit of advice, nothing more. Hope you sort it.