No sales since launch

[BennTec]

Hey everyone.

I built this site 2 months ago and yet to get a sale, i do sublimation printing, printing photos, logos, images onto products. Im continuing to add products and tweaking the site. Id love to allow the customer to upload there image or design there product on my site however With a little budget and little html skills i have to make the best of what ive got for now and thats getting the customer to email the image or post it.

no online sales since the site launch ..help!.

Your point of views would be great.

thanks
Benn

[Jan]

Hi Benn,

The site looks nice enough, but I think that your prices are just too high, sorry.

Actually I have changed my mind, I was thinking of trade prices for high quantities of promotional material, but actually your prices are for one offs and include postage, so to completely change my mind, I've decided that the prices are pretty cheap, lol.

You'll get an order from me later by the way for some nice moley mugs and keyrings, just got to get my pics sorted first :-)

Regards,

[Duncan Rounding]

It's all about traffic, content, confidence and price.
Get your site known, get qualified back links.
Do you advertise?
What does your Google Analytics show?
Have you researched what phrases people would use to search for your site?
When searching for those phrases is your site on the list?
Have you optimised your pages to suit those phrases?

[Cheapprices4u]

hi looks good

most of the people on here will say the same thing
see duncan above

i tried adwords, shopping portals etc

no sales for ages, site has been redesigned and things improved
not loads of orders as i dont have that many back links

the thing that i saw made the biggest improvement was single product pages, better descriptions ( ongoing) and trying not to duplicate descriptions if i could avoid it

then upload sitemap to google and googlebase etc etc


and what keywords are being targeted here

META keywords: tecprint, tecprint.co.uk, custom printing, canvas, mouse mats, mugs, custom mugs, custom mouse mats, teddy bears, robert burns, jdm, i love my honda, honda, valentines day, teddy bears, i love you teddy bear, custom printing, sublimation printing, heat press printing, mouse mat printing, mug printing, personalised printing, you design we print, t-shirt printing, corporate printing, personalised mouse mats, persoanlised mugs and coasters, coasters, print, printing, car prints, design printing (68 words/429 chars)

just my take on it

im sure you will get better replies


think the thing is you wont get rich overnight its slowly slowly catch your customer

[malbro]

no online sales since the site launch ..help!.

Your point of views would be great.

thanks
Benn

www.tecprint.co.uk

When my wife started the yarn shop web site it took a couple of months to start getting orders and that included advertising the site (and shop) in relevant magazines. Trade has built up steadily in a niche market and we are still on an upward trend with many of our pages now in the top two pages of google and other search engines. Natural growth takes time but adding our products to Google Base has given sales a nice boost.

[bcomp]

I like the look of the site but a few things i noticed:

Meta tags report for: http://www.tecprint.co.uk/
meta tag length value
Title: 8 Tecprint

Meta tags analysis.
Title: Title meta tag contains no errors.
This tag contains 8 characters.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title relevancy to page content is excellent.
The Title relevancy to page content is 100%.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description: Found no description meta tag.
The description meta tag is used by most of the search engines. Consider adding a description meta tag.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keywords: Found no keywords meta tag.
The keyword meta tag is still used by many search engines. Consider adding a keyword meta tag.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robots: Found no robots meta tag.
This tag is not really required but helps spiders to index the web page.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author: Found no author meta tag.
This tag is not really required but helps for your (company) name recognition.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few things i would also consider changing to improve SEO would be:

• Use Single products per page
• Use Non CGI url navigation
• Don't use a Freebie email address such as tecprint AT live [dot] xx [dot] xx it just looks unprofessional imo.

Using free tools as a guide such as http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/ they suggest the following:

The maximum number of characters we recommend for Title tag is 80.
The maximum number of characters we recommend for Description tag is 250.
The maximum number of characters we recommend for Keywords tag is 500.

Also just something i found for myself was adding fragments to the top sections with text optimised for the products within the section so for example if i have a section for ford cars i would have a fragment at the top of the page with a paragraph or two which albeit not necessary maybe for customers (although not intrusive or out of place) which i have found improves our listings 10 fold especially if the meta description is very similar but not the same as the descriptive text used in the fragment.

Using "Ford Cars" as a search example on google http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ford+cars&meta= the top result (other than Ford) is http://www.jenningsforddirect.co.uk, looking at the site you can see they have a little block of text at the top which is not actually really necessary for customer but look at the results they have achieved in search engines for a very, very popular search term.

[jont]

The way the images are handled is quite poor - Norman at www.drillpine.biz has a great plug-in for uploading images and attaching them to the order... may be worth the investment considering the market place you are in.

[Ho Ho Bird]

I'd thought about getting some polo shirts printed so was interested in your site. The help given above should help you get visitors, so my comments are about the experience when I reach your site.

Prices do seem Ok for the low volumes I'd want but before I would place an order I'd need to know more about the quality of the T shirt I was buying. For example:
- I don't know if 220gsm if the best available or the cheapest load of rubbish.
- I don't know if I need L or XL (a link to a page with sizing info would help).
- A close up photo, particularly showing the collar / button area, would help.
- Can I get an image on the front AND the back (obviously different pricing)
- Is there a size limit to the image you can accept
- Do you do colours other than white?

I'd be happy to pay a good price so long as I know I'm getting a great product that fits....so having 'normal quality in white' at £18.00 and 'premium quality with colour choice' for £22.00 would suit me.

Also, the text 'If your design requires a custom message, please include this in the e-mail' seems to appear everywhere (twice in the very limited info for polo shirts) and is surely unnecessary. Surely the whole reason for your business is almost everything is personalised....so every order for a 'personalised T shirt' will need to upload a design?

Also (sorry to go on), your method of uploading the 'personalised image' discourages people from ordering more than item, for fear the personalised details may get mixed up. You should use Actinic to pre-populate the title of the email with (for eg) "My design for my Polo Shirt" (this is easy to do and it may be possible to even include the size (ie XL) in the title line). If I then go on and order a different size Polo shirt for my wife, and a couple of coffee mugs for the kids, I feel more confident the correct item will come back with the correct image.

Your killer selling point is that you are set up for 'one offs' and low volume orders. Your 'free postage' message should be everywhere as most orders for small quantities get killed off by postage charges as costly as the item bought. I'd suggest your SEO should aim for people searching for 'One off' and 'low volume'.

The SPP (Single product per page) has been mentioned but does need attention. Not just for SEO. If I'm on a a page with lots of different items and click a 'find out more' link against a specific item (Polo Shirts) I'm expecting to land on a page with just Polo shirts. As the moment I land half way down a page with all types of clothing and have to search around again to find the item I want.

It is always going to be tough for you to get traffic in what I assume is a competitive area, so I think you need to work super-hard to give any users that do land a great experience and make sure they don't go elsewhere.

[Mike Hughes]

It's quite a nice website. Certainly the kind of thing I could use myself. The prices look good too once you realise that these are for one offs, not volume quantities.

There are a number of things you can do to improve sales:

1. Make it clearer what your value proposition is. I'm not sure 'Personalised gifts' is quite right. I suspect that many people who might buy from you are looking to treat themselves to something unique. Jan with a mug, me with a canvas photo, etc. You really need to understand what people are doing with your products and then position the website as delivering that service.

2. You do need traffic so a bit of time on SEO is worthwhile. Make sure you work out what kind of terms potential customers are likely to use when looking for your service. 'Personalised canvas' doesn't make nearly as much sense to me as 'canvas photos' or 'canvas printing'.

3. The website could be easier to navigate. I expected the product titles above the section images to be clickable, but they aren't. Similarly, clicking the logo should take you to the home page.

4. Some of the layour could be smarter. Your form to enter the competition could do with some borders around the inputs. The header navigation has different text sizes and doesn't look that nice. I didn't see the RH banner about '4 easy steps' until I'd looked around a bit ('Attatch' should say 'attach'). The navigation menu is too small - This is a key component of getting people to move aound your site so don't make it small and insignificant.

5. Explaining what you do and how it works would give customers greater confidence. Maybe a 'new customers' section to explain it all would be a good idea. Also add some testimonials and other confidence giving content (presumably you have some offline customers already). An about us section would also help. Is all the work done in-house?, experience?, etc.

6. Make more of the benefits of your service. Your prices look good for one-off items. The 2 day turnaround on canvas photos looks excellent. Make this more visible so customers don't miss it. Also add a better description of what you're offering and why people might want it.

A good example is the 'personalised canvas' page. You repeat the same stuff three times:

* Superb Quality canvas
* Price you see is the price you pay
* Email image continue to checkout
* Dispatched within 2 days

But don't say anything about what people might want them for (family photos, baby photos, cherished wedding day photos, holiday of a lifetime photo) or how people might use them ('for a clean, modern look', 'don't show sticky fingerprints', 'larger, clearer pictures with no reflections unlike a photo frame', etc) or maybe an upsell ('for a unique wall display, try breaking a landscape photo into three parts and print each one on a separate canvas').

You also need to give more details so people know what to expect (rather than worry about it). Things like 'printed at 600dpi in 24Million glorious colours'. 'Fade resistant inks for 10 year lifetime'. 'All canvas prints have a reflection resistant satin finish'. 'Canvas is stretched over a 1inch timber frame'. 'Hooks provided for easy wall hanging'. ( OK. I made all these up but there must be stuff like this for these products).

And don't forget delivery info too. Not just the cost, but how these precious items will be safely packed to arive in tip-top condition.

7. I'm sure there was a 7 but I've forgotten it now.

Mike

[BennTec]

What can i say but thank you all replying. Lots of helpful information and great advice. Plenty for me to do and think about. Outside Opinions are priceless.

i have started Google adwords and Analytics, Analytics showing rather poor results, most people ive had on my site in a day is 19. Im trying different keywords and adding them to my descriptions, but its trial and error i think. I have a few backlinks 5 or 6 just now. I do have offline customers but thats been from word of mouth. Im about to do some advertising, flyers, brochures etc.

Im away to get a coffee and read all the replies again, note things down and check them off once there done.


Thank you
Benn

[Duncan Rounding]

It's all about numbers. Very roughly - if you can get 3 conversions per 100 unique vistors to the site then you're doing about average.

[Ho Ho Bird]

Hi again Benn. I've been thinking about this some more after my already long reply.........

Most of the sites put up for review on these pages are 'business owner' sites - ie something the business owner has developed themselves. Even though these sites contain many flaws in layout etc, the one thing that usually shines through is the business owners enthusiasm for his business / product / services...no matter how specialist the subject is.

I think that is what I'm missing from your site. I don't know if you've had a life-long desire to create personalised products for the masses but if you have, it certainly isn't coming across. Thinking it over this morning, the picture your site has painted in my mind is of someone who is just giving this a try to earn a few £; That you have no emotional investment in the business.

If I've read the situation incorrectly I apologise, but do add the 'get my enthusiasm across' to your to-do list.

[Stereo Steve]

You only have your home page indexed by google whic is understandable for a new site. But, all your links to products / sections on your home page are cgi links. You really want proper html links in there. There is plenty of info on here about this. I think this would really help google to crawl and start to index your site properly.

[Stereo Steve]

Oh and start to get some links to the site. A sig here is not a bad place to start.

[Nick C]

I've little experience to call from except that as a consumer. You may want to look at the following website which I'd suggest is probably your biggest and best known competitor:

http://www.cafepress.com/

It may be worth looking at how they set up their product pages.