New online store NEED ADVICE

SaharaStorm

I have recently (today) set up an online store saharastorm(dot)com. I sell affordable tablets, headphones, portable power banks and other various items that are high in quality, but below retail price.
However I have come here to ask advice on promoting my website. (Live in cork)
•attracting more traffic to my site ?
•gaining trust and building a reputation?
•any other advice ?

I'd greatly appreciate any other advice
Thank you.

GerardKeating

SaharaStorm wrote: »

I have recently (today) set up an online store saharastorm(dot)com. I sell affordable tablets, headphones, portable power banks and other various items that are high in quality, but below retail price.
However I have come here to ask advice on promoting my website. (Live in cork)
•attracting more traffic to my site ?
•gaining trust and building a reputation?
•any other advice ?

I'd greatly appreciate any other advice
Thank you.

You site seems to be offline.

SaharaStorm

GerardKeating wrote: »

You site seems to be offline.

Thank you for pointing that out! I'm having a small issue with that, it seems that when I put in the "www." It is offline, but when I just type "saharastorm(dot)com" (with an actual dot) I get right through! I know this ultimately is the first step I apolagise for this!

str|ct9

Maybe update the description on the tablet on the homepage. You seem to think Jellybean is the latest android release...

SaharaStorm

str|ct9 wrote: »

Maybe update the description on the tablet on the homepage. You seem to think Jellybean is the latest android release...

Thank you I'll edit the description shortly! I'm currently an iOS user gonna make the big switch soon

ImDave

SaharaStorm wrote: »

Thank you for pointing that out! I'm having a small issue with that, it seems that when I put in the "www." It is offline, but when I just type "saharastorm(dot)com" (with an actual dot) I get right through! I know this ultimately is the first step I apolagise for this!

If you can get edit the DNS zones on your hosting control panel (presume you are using shared hosting space), you just need to create a record for www(dot)saharastorm(dot)com. There would be one already there without the www, pointing to the IP address of your site. Google can provide help if required.

SaharaStorm

ImDave wrote: »

If you can get edit the DNS zones on your hosting control panel (presume you are using shared hosting space), you just need to create a record for www(dot)saharastorm(dot)com. There would be one already there without the www, pointing to the IP address of your site. Google can provide help if required.

thanks very much, in the process now sorting it out with the hosting company, greatly appreciated Dave!

SaharaStorm

Everything seems to be sorted now. Thanks to everyone for the tips/advice so far 😎

gctest50

new place to spend moneyz

You might want to fix up the Twitter and FaceBook buttons on the bottoms of the pages :

SaharaStorm

gctest50 wrote: »

new place to spend moneyz

You might want to fix up the Twitter and FaceBook buttons on the bottoms of the pages :

Expect new products almost daily
I have to make a Facebook I have a twitter (@Sahara__Storm) just have to link them to the website! Cheers for the tip!

pedronomix

have a mooch though this forum on Boards.ie http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=985 Lots and lots of info/advice and tips on this whole topic.

Buttercake

However I have come here to ask advice on promoting my website. (Live in cork) ? where your site is hosted is more important than your location.

•attracting more traffic to my site ?, its a shopify website so you are stuck with their management system. Consider moving your site to a platform you can control like Wordpress/WooCommerce and then you can optimise your website a lot better. Bear in mind, there is no magic wand to get traffic unless you want to pay google adwords.

•gaining trust and building a reputation? Build a brand, make your site dynamic, news section/blog, articles. Obviously no spamming, viruses or hosting illicit links.
There is no refund policy, terms and conditions or privacy policy on your site. How do i know what the returns policy is if i order a tablet and it doesn't work when I get it?
No product ratings or reviews on products.

•any other advice ?
Get someone to spell check your content. Don't copy and paste descriptions from other websites.

"Our Mission & Vission"

If a product is cheap or cheaper than other etailers, it doesn't mean people are going to buy it, in fact I would consider that they would be more cautious.

Take a look at your competitor, big and small - what do they do differently?

SaharaStorm

wrote:

Great advice, I will be doing some improvements today. Thank you

devildriver

I think your main problem is that you don't have a brand. You have named the site Sahara Storm but have no logo or explanation as to why that name was chosen.

The alternate route is to go with something very generic like "Discount Electronics" or some such variant. It's not very creative but it explains exactly what you are about.

As for Buttercake's suggestion about switching to Wordpress I would respectfully disagree. Shopify is fine for what you are doing and I would have more faith in it as a native ecommerce platform than an ecommerce add-on to Wordpress.

But that's a different discussion and it's not your primary concern right now.

IMHO you need to get the brand and logo sorted out first and foremost.

tricky D

Without proper contact info there's no trust. That's a deal breaker imo and I wouldn't advise anyone to purchase until that info, at a bare minimum, is provided.

Also Returns, Shipping, CRO, Privacy Policy (required), Terms, testimonials/endorsements info are all missing.

For the homepage I'd find some middle ground between the current one and the catalog content. A single product on the homepage (and not a lot else) isn't good use of prime real estate.

Product pages need a lot of work. There a good few tweaks that could be done for conversion and there are no reviews.

SEO needs work too.

I'd have more payment methods then just PayPal. Some users just plain don't like PP and a proportion of users without PP accounts will bail at the sight of having to register, damaging your conversion rates.

JMR

The following will improve conversion rates as opposed to gaining you more traffic....

Build trust with the visitor by providing as much info about your company as possible
You need to add more contact info (telephone / address etc.)

I had to search to find an email address.
Online shoppers like to know that they are dealing with a real person that they can talk to if something goes wrong.
There is no indication on your site that you are based in Ireland, shoppers may be wary that their purchases are coming from some far flung corner of the world.
There is no indication of delivery times.

I think your returns policy needs a bit more work, too light at the moment.

As previously mentioned by someone your branding / logo is currently non-existent and would help to build trust also.

As for getting more traffic, the quick fix is Google AdWords and then an ongoing campaign of creating quality, unique, worthwhile content that others in your niche will naturally want to link to.

You can check your current position in the search engines relative to your competitors with tools like this one
http://www.whatsmyserp.com/

Best of luck with the new venture!

cgriffin

Some interesting points made.

The hosting problem using a shopify solution and the lack of contact details on the site in particular stand out to me as good advice.

Would be interested in finding out if anyone knows of someone that is using a shopify e-commerce platform in Ireland and achieving a high level of organic traffic through google.ie???

It really is a popular option in Ireland at present for its simplicity but I know of nobody that is having any huge success with it. Anything that is promoted as easy when it comes to selling online should be treated with suspicion.

Anyway back to the OP Question

If Ireland is your target market you might be better off going down the road of a dot ie site to be honest. It will involve a bit of paperwork if you have not already properly registered the business of course.

It should be also hosted in Ireland (or Cork even).

Wordpress site with Woo-Commerce shopping cart plugin is solid advice in my opinion.

Writing original content about the kind of things that people are searching about on google relevant to what you sell is one of the real keys to success though in my opinion. You will be very lucky to ever rank high on the search engines if you are copy and pasting the product description supplied to you by the manufacturer (wholesaler)

For instance do a blog post or video tutorial on how to turn off the torch on the Iphone!

Create Youtube channel and upload video reviews / tutorials to channel then take the embedded code to upload them to your website.

Add a newsletter subscription option to your website.

Look into Mailchimp its free for first 2,000 email address you add and you can send a database of 2,000 emails 6 times a month for free.

Offer incentives to attract subs

"Fancy a discount on your order, sign up for newsletter and we will send you a discount coupon code you can use at checkout"

Create a relevant PR contact database and if Cork is the target market get a clever press release written outlining it is a start-up business and point out something unique or newsworthy about you or your business which the local hacks in newspapers and radio stations may wish to chat with you further.

Make sure your website is looking good though and everything is functioning properly across all browsers and devices before taking this step.

Whilst it is wise to create social media accounts from the point of view of sharing new content you create on your site if nothing else, it may not be wise to focus too much on social media or have very high expectations from it at this point.

It is a lot more likely that your customer will run a search on google if in the market for your products.

Facebook and buying mode don't greatly mix well in my opinion.

There is of course exceptions to this but selling online is still a relatively new process and it is evolving at the speed of an express train.

Any advice you will get here or indeed anywhere is unlikely to lead to guaranteed success or failure.

Long hours and hard work will go a long way towards helping you succeed.

Wishing you the best in business!

SaharaStorm

cgriffin wrote: »

Some interesting points made.

The hosting problem using a shopify solution and the lack of contact details on the site in particular stand out to me as good advice.

Would be interested in finding out if anyone knows of someone that is using a shopify e-commerce platform in Ireland and achieving a high level of organic traffic through google.ie???

It really is a popular option in Ireland at present for its simplicity but I know of nobody that is having any huge success with it. Anything that is promoted as easy when it comes to selling online should be treated with suspicion.

Anyway back to the OP Question

If Ireland is your target market you might be better off going down the road of a dot ie site to be honest. It will involve a bit of paperwork if you have not already properly registered the business of course.

It should be also hosted in Ireland (or Cork even).

Wordpress site with Woo-Commerce shopping cart plugin is solid advice in my opinion.

Writing original content about the kind of things that people are searching about on google relevant to what you sell is one of the real keys to success though in my opinion. You will be very lucky to ever rank high on the search engines if you are copy and pasting the product description supplied to you by the manufacturer (wholesaler)

For instance do a blog post or video tutorial on how to turn off the torch on the Iphone!

Create Youtube channel and upload video reviews / tutorials to channel then take the embedded code to upload them to your website.

Add a newsletter subscription option to your website.

Look into Mailchimp its free for first 2,000 email address you add and you can send a database of 2,000 emails 6 times a month for free.

Offer incentives to attract subs

"Fancy a discount on your order, sign up for newsletter and we will send you a discount coupon code you can use at checkout"

Create a relevant PR contact database and if Cork is the target market get a clever press release written outlining it is a start-up business and point out something unique or newsworthy about you or your business which the local hacks in newspapers and radio stations may wish to chat with you further.

Make sure your website is looking good though and everything is functioning properly across all browsers and devices before taking this step.

Whilst it is wise to create social media accounts from the point of view of sharing new content you create on your site if nothing else, it may not be wise to focus too much on social media or have very high expectations from it at this point.

It is a lot more likely that your customer will run a search on google if in the market for your products.

Facebook and buying mode don't greatly mix well in my opinion.

There is of course exceptions to this but selling online is still a relatively new process and it is evolving at the speed of an express train.

Any advice you will get here or indeed anywhere is unlikely to lead to guaranteed success or failure.

Long hours and hard work will go a long way towards helping you succeed.

Wishing you the best in business!

There have been some outstanding pieces of advice and I really appreciate it. I have been doing some improvements to the site, will be adding a logo soon & linking up with social media.

cgriffin

SaharaStorm wrote: »

There have been some outstanding pieces of advice and I really appreciate it. I have been doing some improvements to the site, will be adding a logo soon & linking up with social media.

Good to hear the points people are making are useful.
Just take on board before you do too much more that a few of us have recommended abandoning shopify completely and moving to a wordpress shopping cart.
It would be less painful to do this now than wait until later.
You need to contact a reputation Irish online hosting company to enable this (do your research on who to go with)

SaharaStorm

cgriffin wrote: »

Good to hear the points people are making are useful.
Just take on board before you do too much more that a few of us have recommended abandoning shopify completely and moving to a wordpress shopping cart.
It would be less painful to do this now than wait until later.
You need to contact a reputation Irish online hosting company to enable this (do your research on who to go with)

Appreciate the tip! If you don't mind me asking, what are the advantages of moving away from shopify? Thanks a million for all the advice!

cgriffin

SaharaStorm wrote: »

Appreciate the tip! If you don't mind me asking, what are the advantages of moving away from shopify? Thanks a million for all the advice!

Bear in mind other might disagree with me so I would advise getting plenty of opinions on this but the main two points as far as I am concerned are

1: If you are after the Irish market a site not hosted here is going to be harder to get ranked on google for search terms relevant to what you sell. Using a dot ie domain could help you further in pursuit of this.

2: Don't know what shopify package you are on but I would imagine they are taking commission on each transaction on top of a monthly fee? There would be no fees and no commission if you move to a wordpress option. This means can reap the benefits of a higher margin on sales or sell at more competitive prices.

EIREHotspur

That is a pretty weak Shopify Template.....very bland and no shape or form to it at all.

Pictures, Pictures...Pictures....And get a banner for offers that rotates.

Your About Us is a paragraph with generalistic information

"We are Ireland`s leading online retailer of affordable electronics."

Who are you, Where are you???

Get your website right before you start promoting because first impressions online especially count for a lot.

Your Catalog is 14 products??
I would pass you off as a dropseller with your office in your bedroom with a cheap template.

Sorry to be frank but I have to tell it like it is.

SaharaStorm

EIREHotspur wrote: »

That is a pretty weak Shopify Template.....very bland and no shape or form to it at all.

Pictures, Pictures...Pictures....And get a banner for offers that rotates.

Your About Us is a paragraph with generalistic information

"We are Ireland`s leading online retailer of affordable electronics."

Who are you, Where are you???

Get your website right before you start promoting because first impressions online especially count for a lot.

Your Catalog is 14 products??
I would pass you off as a dropseller with your office in your bedroom with a cheap template.

Sorry to be frank but I have to tell it like it is.

Again appreciate all feedback, yes I know it's poor but I only started 48hrs ago

brimal

Very quick first impressions is that the search/cart bar, text logo and menu are taking up a huge amount of screen real estate. It takes up half the screen on my browser.

Your menu items are not consistent and have typo's. You spell 'About Us' with a capitalised U, but 'Contact us' has a lowercase U. 'Tablet pc`s' should have uppercase 'PC', and no need for the apostrophe. These little things can make your website look very amateur.



Are you a dropseller or do you have the stock in Ireland?

devildriver

cgriffin wrote: »

Bear in mind other might disagree with me so I would advise getting plenty of opinions on this but the main two points as far as I am concerned are

1: If you are after the Irish market a site not hosted here is going to be harder to get ranked on google for search terms relevant to what you sell. Using a dot ie domain could help you further in pursuit of this.

2: Don't know what shopify package you are on but I would imagine they are taking commission on each transaction on top of a monthly fee? There would be no fees and no commission if you move to a wordpress option. This means can reap the benefits of a higher margin on sales or sell at more competitive prices.

A dot ie domain name will certainly help in targeting and gaining trust in the Irish market.

Hosting the site here does not provide any additional value in terms of SEO. That may have been the case 5 years ago but now with the global nature of the hosting business (even Google is entering the hosting realm) and the prolific use of CDNs search engines no longer correlate server location and business location in any meaningful way.

The country-specific domain and geographic targeting information in Google Webmaster Tools will override the server location.

I'm also at a loss to why Wordpress / WooCommerce would be a better option than Shopify.

cgriffin

devildriver wrote: »

A dot ie domain name will certainly help in targeting and gaining trust in the Irish market.

Hosting the site here does not provide any additional value in terms of SEO. That may have been the case 5 years ago but now with the global nature of the hosting business (even Google is entering the hosting realm) and the prolific use of CDNs search engines no longer correlate server location and business location in any meaningful way.

The country-specific domain and geographic targeting information in Google Webmaster Tools will override the server location.

I'm also at a loss to why Wordpress / WooCommerce would be a better option than Shopify.

Well to be fair I already offered my opinions on why I feel this is the case in a post above.

It seems that you believe Shopify is a better option. Why is this?

Can you give me an example of an Irish e-commerce store on the shopify platform which is achieving a high level of relevant organic traffic?

Graham

cgriffin wrote: »

Can you give me an example of an Irish e-commerce store on the shopify platform which is achieving a high level of relevant organic traffic?

That's hardly the most watertight argument. As a hosted platform Shopify is likely to attract a less tech savvy audience who are less likely to understand what SEO entails.

FWIW, I think each platform has its place and I can't see a huge difference between either from an SEO point of view.

tricky D

ImDave wrote: »

If you can get edit the DNS zones on your hosting control panel (presume you are using shared hosting space), you just need to create a record for www(dot)saharastorm(dot)com. There would be one already there without the www, pointing to the IP address of your site. Google can provide help if required.

A note on this. For some technical reasons you should get the non-www address (aka naked domain) to point to the www address using a 301 redirect/rewrite rule.

cgriffin wrote: »

Well to be fair I already offered my opinions on why I feel this is the case in a post above.

Setting up your location in GWT has done away with this problem, mostly. Where it might be an issue is if your hosting is slow for your location due to lack of proximity as Google has of late put more stress on site speed.

devildriver

cgriffin wrote: »

Well to be fair I already offered my opinions on why I feel this is the case in a post above.

Of course, we're all just offering opinions.

cgriffin wrote: »

It seems that you believe Shopify is a better option. Why is this?

It's not neccesarily that I think that Shopify is a better platform, but somebody suggested that the OP should move from Shopify to a WP / WooCommerce setup and I find that hard to justify. I can't see any major benefit in changing platform at this early stage in the OP's business.

In fact from the OP's point of view there would be considerable amount of work involved in moving from Shopify. And again those advocating the WP/WooCommerce option haven't really given any compelling reasons for changing platforms.

cgriffin wrote: »

Can you give me an example of an Irish e-commerce store on the shopify platform which is achieving a high level of relevant organic traffic?

Do you have any such data on Irish WooCommerce stores versus competing stores in the same market that are built on Shopify? In any case that's a fairly weak line of debate as there are far too many factors that contribute towards sales success other than the choice of platform.

I am actually genuinely interested in why WooCommerce is a better option than Shopify. It's not something I have any experience with so I'm keen to know why you believe wooCommerce is superior.

cgriffin

Graham wrote: »

That's hardly the most watertight argument. As a hosted platform Shopify is likely to attract a less tech savvy audience who are less likely to understand what SEO entails.

FWIW, I think each platform has its place and I can't see a huge difference between either from an SEO point of view.

It is not an argument just a genuine question.

If SEO is not part of the mix in your goal to build a successful e-commerce store I think you will find it very difficult to achieve success without endless streams of investment.

People got to learn what to do and know what they are doing whatever platform they are on.

tricky D

One reason which might or might not apply as to whether Shopify or Woo/WP is better is ease of customisation. Is shopify customisation possible only through the UI or can I drill into code as well like I can with a self-hosted Woo/WP? I don't know shopify well enough to say myself? But I know I'd often prefer options beyond a UI-only.