Launched Shopify store 1 month ago, next to zero traffic and no sales yet!

[LuciniLondon]

We have pretty much zero traffic and no sales and we just want to work out how to change this...

We're a new start up and believe we have a fairly niche style particularly in our country and are passionate about designing our own luxury bikinis. We spent the last 6-7 months setting up the business, sourcing the right factories,  designing bikinis and fitted jewellery pieces, getting products made and shipped to us, we had 2 fairly expensive photoshoots to get at least 100 high quality product images for 7 different bikini designs across a range of all colours. We developed Shopify store using Gecko theme and the store went live on 1st July which we felt was just about in time for the summer, with it being a seasonable product. 

3 months prior we started building up content on Instagram and about 5 days before we launched we did a collaboration with our photography team who have a lot of followers and we ran a competition to win a trip to Portugal for 2 people including £150 to spend on bikinis on our store, alongside 2 runner up prices of £100 voucher each.

We spent £800 via Meta managed by our photography team and the post got 100K views and 5000 comments and on our own Instagram profile it grew by an additional 900 followers in just 3 weeks 90% of those women in the right age range and in our country (UK). In additional we gained 400 new subscribers on our website. 

We also gained lots of Influencers contacting us and wanting to collaborate but only wanted gifting and we sent them bikinis and many of them and helping us a lot by posting stories and reels and tagging us in with them wearing them on their holidays, they have been 4000-90,000 followers each, so we seem to have no problem getting Influencers on  board and there's about 20 now in our spreadsheet, all of which are in our country and have a lot of female followers.

HOWEVER...we have not had 1 sale yet from this campaign of via Influencer marketing, even though we have done some good email marketing linking to products on the site and we've had very good feedback that our branding is good, our photos look great and in our own friend circle a number of people have purchased from us directly and word is spreading, but not online. We've had 7/8 Trustpilot reviews which have all been really positive too, give by friends that purchased and Influencers we gifted.

We recognise that it's going to be a huge challenge and we are ready to put all our time and effort in and we have some money to invest in marketing it's all been self funded so far. The problem is we don't really know where to start in terms of marketing, as in what the immediate focus should be. 

We initially thought maybe Google Ads would be a way to go, but it's a huge investment and there is no real guarantee it will give us a substantial enough return before it eats up all our marketing budget and our photography company feel that's not the best way to go. They feel with a fashion brand like ours social media is the way forward, in particular Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok.

But as it stands today we are receive next to no traffic each day, as in 0-4 visits even though I submitted a site map 6 weeks ago to Google Search console. I also started a blog although we have only done 3 articles so far but have plans for a lot more. We just promoted a 20% off weekend deal to our 1080 Instagram followers (91% female in the UK) and still didn't get any real visits, the odd click through but nothing being added to the cart. 

We could really do with some advise on which marketing directions we should take and prioritise in order to avoid throwing away all our money or not getting anywhere. There's so many marketing avenues that it's become a bit daunting and we just want to focus on one or two things and put our money into something that gives us a fighting chance.  

We recognise there is an long term organic route with SEO and Social Media, we have an account on Tiktok but they don't want to give us any reach either (less than 50 views on all our posts for the past 2 months posting fairly frequently on it), and with Pinterest shop we have to wait until 1st September to open it due to our domain name being too new. We have shops set up on Instagram and FB and always tag our posts with our products. We are looking to use Youtube to learn everything we can and take some courses etc, but we are just hoping to get some advice from those that have been where we are and have a fairly good idea about what we should be focussing on right now in 2024 and how much time we should give it until we should start to see some sales.

Maybe there's also issues with our website itself which is effecting how Google is viewing us, our website can be viewed at https://lucinilondon.com 

Appreciate any advice, recommendations and insight! 🙂

[JoesIdeas]

I would try Google Ads. You mentioned it's a huge investment, but in my experience it's not a big investment to run some experiments.

Here's what I would do:

1. Set a daily budget of £5 - £20, depending what you're comfortable with

2. Create some basic ads for your product

3. Analyze the keywords, add new ones, experiment with different ad copy.

Ideally you can hire someone to set those up for you, tell them you want to try Google Ads for a month or 2 to see if it's worth investing in long term.

Google Ads usually convert much better than social media ads, so I always start there. Once you find winning campaigns, you have pretty much auto pilot sales and traffic with a positive ROI (long term, after you've dialed in your ads and made them efficient).

I see you're collecting email addresses, I would tap that list and reach out to some people individually (not an email blast), and try to get feedback.

I would also include an About page in the header, it helps show trust and gives a way to develop a connection with the customer. In tests I've ran, About page in the header gets a lot of clicks. Maybe you could include the Our Story, but it looks like it might be out of date ("In the coming months of 2024, a new force in beachwear will start to emerge").

I like the blog strategy you have going. I've had success with that, not immediately though, expect that to take a few months to a year before you start seeing decent traffic.

Reviews would be great. To the people you gave bikinis away, or people that have bought them offline, ask them for a review. Those help a lot.

I think your brand would work great for connecting Instagram to your website to show photos and have a shoppable instagram. See Automation Tip #6 on this blog post: 7 Shopify Automation Tips to Level Up Your Store for a system that I've ran successfully.

[LuciniLondon]

Hello JoesIdeas, thank you so much for this advice it's gives us a starting point to consider.

good idea about the About page and for highlighting it needs updating, we'll get into that and get it in the main menu 🙂

We did go through 2/3 hours of consultation with 2 google ads specialists who did seem very helpful and we set up a campaign in the Merchant Centre which we can activate whenever we want. It was suggested by others that a £5-20 allowance would help in the first 3 weeks to get enough data to better optimise the ad. We also have a credit of £800 if we spend £1200 on google ads so maybe we can allow care that budget and see what happens: we spoke to a few people on Fiverr that said they could set things up for us that would cost approximately £150-400 but not entirely sure exactly what 'setting things up' means as we are very new to this, so we've hesitated a little. We thought maybe we could use YouTube to learn how to do this set up part ourself maybe to save money. Then again maybe it's worth the investment to get it done for us by someone that knows what they are doing. 

that's a good idea about getting feedback, what kind of approach should we take with this and what kind of questions should we ask? Those subscribers came from the Instagram contest and it was part of the rules to enter, they are our target audience, and we've sent out a few campaigns using Omnisend promoting 'new arrivals' and linking to products on the website and offering a discount etc but not a lot of traction so far. We also did one promoting the latest blog post about the top bikini colours for summer. 

We have a few reviews already in Trustpilot from 7 people we gave some bikinis to but maybe having reviews on the website is better. We hesitated with this just from fear of the odd bad review turning people off a product, but maybe the odd bad review is better than no reviews, obviously, so we will reconsider this. 

We do have an Instagram slideshow slider section on the home page at the bottom but it's not dynamic it basically has a few photos linking to the related post on our Instagram so will look into your suggestion and see how that works. We tag our products on Instagram to our posts, we just need to get more views etc for that to be effective. 

We are going to aim for 1 blog post per week or two weeks and theme it around bikini related things, we just need to learn more about SEO and how to optimise the site so it can be found better in search engines. A number of people have recommended SEMRush as a tool that can assist and something we can learn through, they do a number of free courses too, so we thought that could prove a helpful investment of time so we can get a keyword strategy in place - any thoughts or advice on SEMRush or an alternative strategy or room to look at? We tried using Google Keyword Planner but didn't find it all that helpful, maybe just hadn't worked out how to use it properly yet. Going to turn to YouTube for help. 

[JoesIdeas]

For asking questions, I would just ask them the questions you want to know, they will either respond or not.

SEMRush is great. I've used that, and also Moz. Both were good, just different.

I like to experiment and analyze the data, to find winning paths, then scale up on that. Different marketing channels perform differently for different brands, categories, audiences, etc, so typically the only way to know is either to experiment, or work with a marketer that has experience in your exact niche.

It looks like your brand / site has the potential, just gotta crack the code on product / market fit and finding that audience.

Good luck ✊

[permar]

What's your why? 
Why do you exist as a brand?

Why should people by from you?

Honestly, the website is quite nice/ok, but super generic. 

On Instagram you just show your products. 
Look at Red Bull's marketing for example. 

They barely show there product. They show what there company is about. 

So what is Lucini London about and why should woman buy their tops from Lucini London?

[LuciniLondon]

Great reply and lots to think about here. Thanks so much! 

[LuciniLondon]

Hi ProEdge

thanks so much for your feedback and tips all are great and we'll be referring to them as we progress. 

store url is our name dot com

[heddykhalifa]

It sounds like you've put a ton of effort into getting your brand off the ground, and it's clear you're passionate about it! Here’s some straightforward advice to help you focus your marketing efforts:

1. Revisit Your Website:

   • First, make sure your site is optimized for conversions. You’ve got great photos and branding, but check the user experience. Is it easy for someone to find what they want and check out? Sometimes a tiny tweak can make a big difference.

2. Leverage Instagram and TikTok:

   • Since your target audience is active on Instagram and TikTok, keep focusing there. However, try different types of content—behind-the-scenes, styling tips, or user-generated content might resonate more. For TikTok, consistency is key, and experimenting with trending sounds or hashtags could help.

3. Email Marketing:

   • With 400 subscribers, email marketing is your best friend. Keep them engaged with regular, value-driven emails—think styling tips, stories behind your designs, and exclusive discounts.

4. Use Paid Ads Strategically:

   • If you decide to run ads, start small and test. Facebook and Instagram ads can be effective, but focus on building lookalike audiences based on your current followers or email list. If you do try Google Ads, go for highly targeted keywords to avoid burning through your budget.

5. Collaborate More:

   • Influencers are great, but try to get a few to commit to long-term partnerships where they become more of an ambassador for your brand. Sometimes, smaller influencers with highly engaged audiences can drive more sales than bigger ones.

6. SEO and Blogging:

   • Keep building your blog with content that’s relevant to your audience. SEO takes time, but writing about topics your target market cares about (like swimwear trends or how to style bikinis) can slowly start to drive organic traffic.

7. Analyze and Adjust:

   • Don’t forget to check your analytics regularly. What’s working? What’s not? It’s okay to pivot if you see something isn’t bringing in results.

8. Consider a PR Push:

   • You might want to consider a PR push to get featured in fashion blogs or magazines. It could give your brand some much-needed visibility.
     
     There's no secret formula for marketing, just keep experimenting and find what works for you! 
     Good luck 🙂 

[Velinxs]

 

Do you not ship to USA? Because when I enter USA address it says no shipping available.  You may have a default package that is preventing people from checking out?