When will I see my first sale on my online store?

[Jose2019]

Hi all
Bit of background:
Have done market research and there is a demand for the products I carry, both in Scandinavia and many other parts of Europe. I'm based in Denmark. Decided to have shop in English/€ as I didn't want to limit opportunites as I do when building a shop in Danish. And I can ship ok cheap to Germany and 4 other EU countries as well (ink UK, still, I hope) Shipping from Denmark is super expensive that's why I cannot offer shipoing to more countries than these. They wont be willing to pay for it.
Question: Did I make a mistake by choosing English..what's your opinion?

https://www.asian-skincare.com opened mid januar 2019. Mistake - opened it to soon, was fare from done reading to assortment and usability. To few products. So had to password protect it on off fore some week or 2. Also had it password protected during march which was a catastrophe for Google indexing.. Practically unvisible up until a few days ago when actively worked in search console...

Have had something like 40 organic visitors in the aprox 2, 5 months it has been live. I have reached 850 visitors/ 1K sessions,( which is a pretty pointless kpi, shopify..) Question is how many of these are myself. A rough guess is 250 visits. (can u exclude your own activity in shopify, like in Google analytics?)

I've spent a tiny 40 usd on fb/instagram, that's it. Also ran 2 competitions which gave some traffic and sign-ups. Have a list of 30 ish. Will start Google ads/shopping soon.

So question is.. Does anybody have a rough estimate on how many visitors needed before the first sale comes, and when I can expect to get them up n running. What's your experience? How long does it roughly takes to things going? Of course there are many many factors and marketing spend is a key factor. Just thinking in general, how long it took for you to begin to make sales.

Off topic, but do I use to many outbound links for my own good? Almost all prod pages have links, as one of my usp's is handpicked, praised products.
Thank u in advance for your help and time 😊🙏

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Normally it takes 100 clicks on a specific product to get 1 sale. This, however, depends on factors such as price, landing page details, quality of traffic.

Not because you are advertising, means the clicks you get are valuable. Research your clicks and see if the type of search terms are valuable.

Hope this helps.

[Jose2019]

Thanks
Where do you have that number from?
Yes, will focus on Google Ads and Google shopping as it generates the most relevant traffic. As we all know, SoMe is generally not generating direct sales..

[EmmanuelFlossie]

The number is based on experience from over 10 years.

[Jose2019]

Thank you, that's great to know.
Have you any thoughts on my outbound linking? I have it as the products I carry are handpicked based on reviews, awards, so use it as a "proof". But Im starting to think it's a bad idea from a seo aspect..and also I'm leading the users away from my shop..

[EmmanuelFlossie]

From a shoppers perspective, think of it this way. When you have a physical shop in a busy shopping center and you have great clients coming in. But then you tell them to go somewhere else to read something. Do you think they will come back as quick? Not really. 

Any traffic you send away will loose an x amount of percentage. You are always best to keep all traffic and focus on your shop.

The only way to improve is by testing. So analyze your analytics check what happens to the customers the click away, do they return? If no then start rebuilding our landing page to be more internal.

I always recommend experimenting and testing, check the data as that is proof of what works and what does not.

Hope this helps.

[Jose2019]

Thanks
Of course, testing is a must. I just launched, so haven't really dug in to it. I just look t drip offs on my product pages in GA? Actually the outbound links all open in New window.. How does this show in GA? Can't see if they returned, can I?
But your basic opinion on this is not to use them? Think I will take them off.. Suspect it's bad for my rankings as well...

[EmmanuelFlossie]

You need to compare stats of returning customers. test for 3 weeks with than without and compare.

In general, you should not encourage customers to walk out of your shop without buying something first.

Hope this helps.

[mortiz888]

Great answer/info.  Thank you for your expertise sir.

[Anonymous]

Hello Jose 2019

I can see where your coming from....I had a question on how many sessions etc....I went live mid July

My sessions on the 30th July 20 was 151 and it said sessions needed to get a sale was 324 I thought that was quite good...Until .....that changed! (luckily I had taken a picture as it was my birthday 30th July) to note this etc 

 .....This had now bumped right up to on 14/09/20 my sessions was 330 and now my sessions needed is 1151 to get 10 sales!!

Well I did write to shopify and in fairness they did give me information ... Alot too complicated for me but it was to do with google analytics ...Ok but I don't know why I got the earlier number needed, which was not right!

Sorry, not much help but to let you know some are in your boat!

Best

Sal12