Why aren't customers placing orders on my e-commerce site?

[Hopefullegacy]

Hello Everyone! I’m excited to be apart of the Shopify family! 

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get any real sales. Just test runs by friends. My site has been live for about 2 months now. I’ve been using paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Google (including Youtube, and google partner websites). But no bites. Its pretty discouraging. Can anyone help me? Maybe I’m doing something terribly wrong?? Any idea why folks are visiting the home page but not placing an order? 

my site is hopefullegacy.com

Any honest feedback would be awesome! Thanks so much! ❤️

[Cart-Critique · Accepted solution]

Hey there, you're not doing anything terribly wrong, so no worries there. But you've entered a very competitive niche, and in a world where anyone can throw together a website to sell stuff, you've got to go above and beyond to stand apart. As of now (and note, this is without being able to see any of your paid or organic traffic/marketing metrics), I would say that's your main issue.

That said you're doing a lot of stuff well already. You're leaning into the small, boutique brand image. You tell your story, you tell your mission, you've got a FAQ and even a candle and safety care page. All that's very good and makes your site come off as legit.

A few notes:

• Your header image has text cut off at the bottom of my screen.
• It's also very important to have high quality images in your headers. They're very big, so any loss in image quality will be noticeable and look "water color-y".
• For your shop, I would stay away from using the Compare at price field unless you're actually running a sale (maybe not even then). Remember, you're a quality boutique brand. Settle on a margin and set nice, even prices ending in .00 or .99. Having them end in odd cents makes it look like they were imported from a dropship app.
• The prices of your jewelry listings are also very broad. Some are $20, some are close to $100. It makes me, as a shopper, not know exactly what the quality of the items is.
• Free shipping on items $75 is a pretty high threshold for your general price points. It may be more effective to factor the shipping costs into your base pricing and offer free shipping across the board. Or, at the highest, I'd suggest maybe $25 or $35 for your threshold.
• If you haven't already, make sure all your products have unique description copy. It looks like you've done this already with the few I check out, but it's really important so worth mentioning.

It looks good for a start. Take care!

[Cart-Critique · Accepted solution]

Hey there, you're not doing anything terribly wrong, so no worries there. But you've entered a very competitive niche, and in a world where anyone can throw together a website to sell stuff, you've got to go above and beyond to stand apart. As of now (and note, this is without being able to see any of your paid or organic traffic/marketing metrics), I would say that's your main issue.

That said you're doing a lot of stuff well already. You're leaning into the small, boutique brand image. You tell your story, you tell your mission, you've got a FAQ and even a candle and safety care page. All that's very good and makes your site come off as legit.

A few notes:

• Your header image has text cut off at the bottom of my screen.
• It's also very important to have high quality images in your headers. They're very big, so any loss in image quality will be noticeable and look "water color-y".
• For your shop, I would stay away from using the Compare at price field unless you're actually running a sale (maybe not even then). Remember, you're a quality boutique brand. Settle on a margin and set nice, even prices ending in .00 or .99. Having them end in odd cents makes it look like they were imported from a dropship app.
• The prices of your jewelry listings are also very broad. Some are $20, some are close to $100. It makes me, as a shopper, not know exactly what the quality of the items is.
• Free shipping on items $75 is a pretty high threshold for your general price points. It may be more effective to factor the shipping costs into your base pricing and offer free shipping across the board. Or, at the highest, I'd suggest maybe $25 or $35 for your threshold.
• If you haven't already, make sure all your products have unique description copy. It looks like you've done this already with the few I check out, but it's really important so worth mentioning.

It looks good for a start. Take care!

[Hopefullegacy]

Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. Awesome! 

[JasonH]

Hello @Hopefullegacy,

Thanks for brining your question to the community. 

I want to let you know that you have the opportunity to have this and any other marketing questions you might have answered by marketing experts and Shopify Partners, 2H Media. Feel free to post your marketing related questions in the AMA thread below:

• AMA With 2H Media: Planning Your 2023 Marketing Budget

2H Media. Co-founders & owners, @MatthewHerchel and @AronMurch will join us live on March 21 from 12-2pm EST to answer your questions on how best to reach your audience, which marketing channels to focus on, and how to plan a sustainable 2023 marketing budget. 

[coxy2024 · Accepted solution]

Hi, your website looks pretty good but please stop throwing money into all types of ads.Facebook ads take a lot of time and creative to get working and you need good margins to make money. Try using just Google Shopping Ads with separate campaigns for each product type and wait and see what Google tells you are your best products by how many clicks you get then concentrate on tweaking your website to make it convert better and hopefully sales will come. Facebook ads will bleed your money dry unless your product is truly amazing, test with Google and then back it up later with retargeting ads with FB and Instagram. 

[Hopefullegacy]

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help. You are very right. I’ve tried google ads too but no bites. I’ll try again.