|
Pretty sure Merlin's getting ready to go too - he must have really been screwing them on the profit sharing.
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 23:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 10:08 |
|
|
How's everyone doing? Any updates? I officially launched two weeks ago. I received my first order today!  However, after further investigation it looked a little fishy. I called the guy to confirm the order and the last 4 digits of the credit card. He couldn't because he said he used his friends card to order it, so then he said just to cancel the order. Dude also didn't know the shipping zip code off the top of his head. I assume it was fraudulent  So I've had 700 visitors, 3% add to cart, 1% reach checkout, and no orders so far. I feel like the site looks solid and has really good content, I've started to get a little interaction with people on facebook even. It's frustrating, but I'll keep working on it. Maybe I need to find someone to comb through my site to see what might be keeping people from buying. I have free shipping, no tax, and prices competitive with amazon's. I have also made great strides to make the site look more professional and inviting, and I'm even offering a 10% off holiday discount. Anyone else having better luck?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 19:55
|
|
|
What sort of site are you using? Niches are meant to be low volume generally so those stats are actually okay. My original site was very close to those numbers also. Anyway I have scrapped that idea not because it was fruitless but because I found something a bit better looking. I'm actually going local with sales by cold calling certain places in my region for contracts with my product. Basically right now they get all theirs from the Southern U.S. in limited quantities and shipping kills them. I found a supplier in Canada and sent them a check last week. It's in production and my fulfillment centre is awaiting the drop. I will also be using a website for country wide free shipping for the relatively small market up here in Canada. I have also been writing down ebook ideas in my spare time and have found one that is actually decently popular but untapped right now so if I get any time off it will be the first thing I start.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 04:15
|
|
|
Im doing very well. Thank you so much to this thread especially the o.p. what changed my life is shadow testing. Im over 100k in sales on my first site and I have more I the pipeline. Im sure some will bomb but there is little risk thanks to the strategy I've learned here!
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 05:41
|
|
|
ANiMaL6ix posted:Im doing very well. Thank you so much to this thread especially the o.p. what changed my life is shadow testing. Im over 100k in sales on my first site and I have more I the pipeline. Im sure some will bomb but there is little risk thanks to the strategy I've learned here! That's inspiring! I've been slacking on this since my new job started but seeing positive posts here has got the gears turning again. Edit: Google AdWords got back to me and pretty quickly credited me half of the dollars I accidentally spent forwarding to my dead site. It was less painful than I thought it would be. Sutureself fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Dec 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 08:23
|
|
|
ANiMaL6ix posted:Im doing very well. Thank you so much to this thread especially the o.p. what changed my life is shadow testing. Im over 100k in sales on my first site and I have more I the pipeline. Im sure some will bomb but there is little risk thanks to the strategy I've learned here! When did you start your e-commerce journey? Did you do the same as the OP, i.e. finding a nieche, or something else? Anyway, good on you and keep on doing whatever it is, because you seem to have struck gold!
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 11:27
|
|
|
i81icu812 posted:Asking again, anyone with advice or suggested reading on the taxation/business entity side of things? I noticed back in the thread you mentioned success selling through Amazon directly. Maybe start an OP with some info and more ideas/advice will follow. Color me interested
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 21:14
|
|
|
My site has been picking up slowly but steady, especially because of the Christmas season. 30% of my total sales have been in the last 7 days, so it's been pretty crazy. I started my website about 90 days ago now, and my profit to date is about $7500. Not to bad and I expect it to continue. I'll be curious (and sad) how things crater in January. December has been such a boom month it's incredible.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 01:31
|
|
|
Dial M for MURDER posted:My site has been picking up slowly but steady, especially because of the Christmas season. 30% of my total sales have been in the last 7 days, so it's been pretty crazy. I started my website about 90 days ago now, and my profit to date is about $7500. Not to bad and I expect it to continue. I'll be curious (and sad) how things crater in January. December has been such a boom month it's incredible. Awesome! You're making in three months what I do in a year online! I finally had to put the store on "holiday" for the rest of December just so we could finish fulfilling orders and dropping them in the mail. With our offline sales our net profit was just a hair over 15k, not bad for our first year of business.  I read the 4 Hour Work Week when it was first released and it led me to start a computer consulting business that was successful for about 4 years. Thumbed through it last year and it gave me the motivation to start the Etsy store. Couple this thread and another read through and I'm hoping to start a full fledged drop-ship style eCommerce store.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 19:10
|
|
|
Any of ya'll worked with Saddle Creek Logistics on fulfillment? If so how are they?
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 04:57
|
|
|
For anyone who is using Wordpress and WooCommerce, Mojo Themes is selling a 12 bundle of premium themes for $29. Which is less than each one normally go for individually. I know a lot of you probably are using Shopifiy or Volusion, but wordpress was what I ended up going with at least for the time being. Sale ends at midnight tonight. http://www.mojo-themes.com/bundles/cyber/ Gripen5 fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Dec 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 21:26
|
|
|
Stryguy posted:How's everyone doing? Any updates? I've done a little over $6000 in sales since things started in November. Not really making any more sales at the moment though, since I turned CPC advertising off as it was costing as much as the sales it brought in. Right now I'm working on some content creation - going to buy some of my products, review them individually with nice pictures and everything, put together a giant mega-comparison, and then push that through established channels to try and get links to kick up my organic traffic. I need the help because I'm still having trouble getting my SERP rankings up, and haven't been able to put in any real time marketing due to holiday travels and such.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2013 17:39
|
|
|
Now that my finals have ended I decided to come back and try looking for a new niche after three I tried a few months ago did not work out. I found an interesting one yesterday I looked into to find it has little competition outside of ebay and some small business owners in Ireland advertising online. Ads averaged $0.60 per click and I am still trying to see if I can do this due to one issue I found. Using Google Trends you can see where people search certain keywords the most. Checking the trends shows that Portugal, Ireland, & the UK make up the majority of the searches for it followed by the USA at a fair distance behind all of them(9th place country overall). I'm searching for a supplier now as this seems promising enough from other information and hope to get something going by the latest tomorrow night to test if it can sell. I hope some other people jump back in if they have free time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2013 02:15
|
|
|
Made about $150 of revenue this month. So around $75 profit. Probably not worth keeping it updated since I think I'm getting most of the traffic for my niche already -- not sure why ad words was so high. A few hours of freelance work would make way more than this. Lesson learned for my next niche! Look for more visitors and more expensive products.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2013 02:47
|
|
|
How do guys feel about so called "reverse" keyword research using tools like SEMrush of spyfu? I found this http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense...e-rankings.html guide on warrior forum, and I've been reading through it and checking out the tools. Seems like it could be a viable method but the tools are kinda pricey.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2013 23:35
|
|
|
I've been messing around with MS and it seems I might have found a niche I want to get into. It seems one person already set up an e-commerce shop a couple of years ago. Visually pretty, overtly tries to make it look like a large company operation, and is selling chinese products at an insane profit margin. MS indicates he might not have put too much effort into optimizing it. Not surprising since I don't see many other shops wanting to profit from it. I think I'll give this one a shot. I'm just learning everything as I go along. Sleepy Robot fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jan 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2014 22:36
|
|
|
Stryguy posted:How's everyone doing? Any updates? We've made one sale! Question for those of you that have made sales. If I sell my product to someone not in my state, do I have to pay Local Sales and Use Tax? Or do I just keep filing a zero sale return each quarter? Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2014 03:17
|
|
|
I have abandoned my niche as it was not working out. Who knew ukuleles was a cut throat business! I am now just working on an existing business selling fishing tackle. The website is https://www.total-outdoors.co.uk for the interested. Its based on wordpress and uses woocommerce. Sales are starting to come through which is good. I need help getting to page one on google as this ultimately cost me the ukulele business working out. Any companies people can recommend to get my site there?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 14:18
|
|
|
It seems like things have changed a lot since this thread started due to Google's search engine updates. Apparently content creation and authority is now the name of the game - I'm having similar trouble ranking high enough in my niche, so I'm going the long route and slowly authoring lots of reviews and articles in spare time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 15:32
|
|
|
I got four sales over the last month, so that's a little uplifting. I am currently looking at upgrading my store theme, I'm thinking a more professional look might help conversions. I get ~2-3% of people to add items to the cart. Only about .3% conversion though :/ If the new theme doesn't help much I'll call it quits and look at other ideas.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 02:04
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:I have abandoned my niche as it was not working out. Who knew ukuleles was a cut throat business! Fixing all the grammar errors on your front page might up conversions, no offense. Maybe hire a proofreader?
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 05:52
|
|
|
semicolonsrock posted:Fixing all the grammar errors on your front page might up conversions, no offense. Maybe hire a proofreader? Fair comment. I just copy and pasted it so def worth looking at.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 09:47
|
|
|
Earlier in my career, I spent the better part of 3 years proofreading daily for a newspaper, and I recently signed on for editing and proofreading a novel. If (any of you) are interested in contracting for a (reasonably priced) proofer, hit me up. PMs or drop me a line or an email at: 
Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jan 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2014 00:26
|
|
|
I couldn't decide between two ideas that both looked promising, so I decided to go with both. Have the websites setup, have my EIN, sent my vendor registrations to the county auditor, and am currently completing my traffic test run. Everything looks good so far. I just need to contact the manufacturers. Any advice on this so I don't look like an idiot? I'm contacting a name brand for the first, and they request an email rather than phone call for domestic vendors. I figure I'll shoot them an email and if I don't hear back from them in a day or two then I'll call. For the second, I found a somewhat local company that I'm going to call. Is there anything I'm forgetting? Going to setup an 800 number and get a PO box in the next couple of days. Also, I have a couple of products on my website that I'm not actually selling and am just using to gauge interest. It's okay to leave these up for the manufacturers to look at if they check out my website, and then pull them down once I actually have a supplier, correct? Just want to make sure I don't screw this up right out the gate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2014 17:05
|
|
|
It might be a good idea to test your traffic + conversions before you went through the trouble of registering and contacting manufacturers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2014 17:33
|
|
|
JD posted:How do guys feel about so called "reverse" keyword research using tools like SEMrush of spyfu? SEMrush's free tools are godsend for my business. The auto-charts, by themselves, are fantastic. And it's nice to pitch a new client with "You have ______ users a month, it would take me X dollars to double that" in a click or two. Edit: This year I started a SEO/SM company (I was tired of getting paid other people's prices for content creation, metric analysis, etc). I've automated so much of the aggregation and posting that I'm looking for more clients. If you PM me, I'll give you a Skype consult gratis, goon's honor. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2014 23:49
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:Don't trust Warrior Forum. Every other post is THAT'S A GOOD IDEA, BUY MY EBOOK or 'whut is, a website? PLZ HElp!" what exactly can you offer? I'm not really selling a product but I'm trying to get more traffic to my website.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
Omits-Bagels posted:what exactly can you offer? I'm not really selling a product but I'm trying to get more traffic to my website. PM'd you. Getting good interest! I'm surprised by how much of my new biz is fueled by either people or tips from A/T BFC.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 04:59
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:PM'd you. I don't have PMs. My email is savvybackpacker at gmail
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 15:30
|
|
|
Just chiming in to say a big thanks for Golden Bee. Seems to know his poo poo. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:Just chiming in to say a big thanks for Golden Bee. Seems to know his poo poo. Sorry your chat dropped! I have to prep some memes for a client (yes really), but I'll be here all afternoon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 21:41
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:I have abandoned my niche as it was not working out. Who knew ukuleles was a cut throat business! That fishing site has almost 100k likes on facebook, and sales are just starting to come through?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 00:29
|
|
|
They're probably Fiverr likes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 01:05
|
|
|
District Selectman posted:That fishing site has almost 100k likes on facebook, and sales are just starting to come through? Edit Just spoke to my partner and none of them are fake! Paid advertising and a yeah of building it up. I thought he paid for fakes but no all legit. Now we need to leverage it better! thegasman2000 fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jan 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 13:12
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:Edit
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 23:45
|
|
|
Kenny Rogers posted:On another note, are you willing to post up the URL to your Uke site, as a teaching tool for something that would have worked if the niche weren't so cutthroat? its was the ukulelestore.net but i am not paying the shopify fees so its down.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2014 15:05
|
|
|
Ok so now I am working on a "normal" web shop project for a friend. I have recently tested adwords and am a bit disappointed with my results. My results are as follows: Clicks Impr. CTR Avg. CPC Cost Avg. Pos 143 7,865 1.82% £0.36 £50.88 2.2 With these we saw no increase in sales whatsoever. Clicktale tells me my bounce rate is 37.7%. Any ideas? http://bit.ly/1g4feeG
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:Ok so now I am working on a "normal" web shop project for a friend. I have recently tested adwords and am a bit disappointed with my results. My results are as follows: First impression, opened the page, saw nothing for sale. Loaded it again, got a different page?! (might have been a caching issue) This has products. Initial descriptions are in different fonts, items and descriptions\buttons are not justified along the southern edge and it looks a bit wrong. Featured products is empty. Site took a fair while to load. I run a pretty high resolution, but if I didn't scroll the page as it loads, looks empty and broken. Shop page looks a little tight. Tiny pictures and too much text:picture ratio. Loaded 3rd time, now I get a background image - something wrong with your hosting maybe? Not meaning to be harsh but these would make me think the website is amateur hour and unless I really needed item X and literally could not get it anywhere else would get it somewhere else.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 19:52
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:Ok so now I am working on a "normal" web shop project for a friend. I have recently tested adwords and am a bit disappointed with my results. My results are as follows: The site is a mess. Typos, nothing to buy on the front page, and when I first look at it quickly I don't even know what the site is for. You trying to teach me about fishing or sell me something for fishing? You have to click a link to get to the sales shop which is the point of the site. If I'm there to buy stuff why isn't the shop the main page? When I hover on the shop category the only sub-cat is Specials. Yet there are more sales categories when I click on the carousal links. Why aren't they listed under shop in the category menu? In fact, all those categories are pointless. You need to have your shop categories listed plainly up top so people know how to actually buy something. You are making it too hard for people to buy anything which again, is the point of the site. The font that is in use in the carousal is for Lazer Tag and not for a business trying to gain people's trust. You have trouble even reading some of them because of the font and the pics you are using. Use a normal font. Think about your audience.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 19:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 10:08 |
|
|
That header-logo, what in the actual gently caress. That atrocity needs to change quickly into something that doesn't look both inappropriately futuristic and unprofessional.  As others have said the hosting is slow and unresponsive. You really should look into getting a refound and moving your site somewhere else. EDIT: I realize that my original reply might not have been especially helpful. Please take a look at this image. I've highlighted everything on your site which either needs to removed, fixed or improved. If you need clarification then just ask. Sadly I think all my solutions will essentially boil down to, "get a better template". 
MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jan 21, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 20:20
|
|
