Traffic but no sales.

[Caric]

Hi everyone I am very new to ecom selling but am very willing and determined to succeed. I ran a couple ads which did send traffic to my store however, I don't have anyone adding products to their carts. I have been tweeking my product descriptions hoping that it would change the situations and trying to read blogs and watch videos to see if I can make changes to hear that cha ching sound. I am truly willing to learn and feedback would be greatly appreciated.                 My website is firstpupshop.com . 

[EcomGeeks]

Hey @Caric,

Congratulations on launching your store! I've taken a look through your store, hopefully my feedback can provide some insight as to why you aren't getting sales.

First, your homepage banner. This area is prime real estate for selling. One of the keys of selling is getting inside your customers head, what problem do they have that you can solve? What words or phrases do they use that you can as well to show that you understand their needs. We recommend having a professional photo of your products, a title introducing your brand or product,  a line of text underneath that expands on your title and a call to action button such as "Shop Now" (you have a button which is great, but the text color is the same as your button color). Here is an example:

Next, I'd recommend having a logo done up. A stores logo is one of those things that holds a lot of weight as far as how professional your store looks. Once you have a logo you can match your store's colors and fonts to it, this will help establish brand identity.

The last thing I'll touch on for now are your products:

You sell pet supplies. The problem with this is that these types of items can be already be purchased offline in hundreds retail stores as well as online through thousands and thousands of online stores. So when a person is searching for a comb or a dog bed in Google, these big companies with massive marketing budgets are who is showing up in search results and who you are competing with for customers. A person can complete IF they give people a reason to purchase from them vs. the other guys. An example of this might be someone who sells these locally, their "reason" as to why you should purchase from them vs the other guy is because they are local and a lot of people are passionate about shopping local, they would also be able to provide products quicker and may offer incentives such as free local delivery. If you cannot find a way to set yourself apart in the market, it is time to move on to a different product. A good product choice should have these qualities:

1. High demand. Look for "problem fixing products".
2. Not easily accessible. Look for products that are not available in stores or online through big retailers or Amazon.
3. Popular. Look for trending products.
4. Good profit margin. We recommend at least 3x what the product costs you.

We did a video on how to find winning products and we also regularly post a collection of winning products on our YouTube channel:

Once you have settled on your winning product/products, you can expand your sales channels and promote your dropshipping products on Google Shopping using the AllFetch Google Shopping Feed app (it's free). It allows you to easily syncing your products from your Shopify store to the Google Merchant Center.

I'd like to help you with your store more so I'd invite you to join a free training that we have going on right now. We cover why stores get high traffic with no sales, spending on Ads with no return and why visitors are abandoning cart. We will help you develop a profitable ad strategy and learn how to generate free traffic, transform your Shopify store into a professional. trustworthy store that customers want to shop at and help you find winning products that people can’t wait to buy. Our free private Facebook training is happening now from April 26 – 30, we will be going live every day at 1:00PM (EST), you can watch the replays until April 30th. You can sign up here. Really hope you join us!

We hope our response was helpful, if it was, let us know by giving us a thumbs up and/or marking it as a solution!

Best of luck!

[Caric]

Hey, I really appreciate all feedback that you have given to me. Thanks alot for breaking down the steps so I can understand. You have given me a lot the think about and I am even contemplating going back to the drawing board. I will indeed sign up for the training.  Thanks alot.

[AiTrillion]

Hello @Caric, This is AiTrillion- an All-in-one Marketing Platform on Shopify. Here are some ways to make your store even better and make people want to purchase:

- The home page should flow better. I would recommend setting it out like this. Slideshow Image- Collection List- Product Recommendations- Testimonials- Newsletter sign up box- Instagram Feed.

- The 'Shop Now' is not visible on the call to action button.

- Add social media links in the footer.

- You need to engage your visitors coming to your site by giving loyalty reward points which will increase repeat purchase and customer lifetime value. You can add a web push notification which will help you to retarget your customers anytime even when they are not in your store. This will help you to run your store smoothly and decrease the bounce rate and will capture your visitors and convert them into prospective or paying customers. You will be able to retain your customers for the long term.

Entice customers by giving them loyalty points on activities like sign up, leaving a review, allowing push notification, visiting a store, on birthdays, and more. This will help you to increase the email and push subscribers. You can then run email and push campaigns to reach your customers on the basis of customer behavior. This helps in increasing the conversion and retention rate.

- Make sure you are using email marketing automation to reach your customers.

Moreover, if you would like to implement the above customer engagement features/ marketing tools in your store I suggest you to install the 'All in one' Shopify app AiTrillion, a full-fledged marketing solution. It will help you to capture visitors coming to your store and will help in getting more conversions. 

Hope this helps!

[NikkiElizDeMere]

Hi @Caric!

Here's some feedback for your store. 

Homepage

• Update "Shop for dog accessories that will make your pet much more happy!!!" to more of a unique value proposition.
  
  “A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered. It’s the primary reason a prospect should buy from you. It’s also the #1 thing that determines whether people will bother reading more about your product or hit the back button. On your site, your value proposition is the main thing you need to test—if you get it right, it will be a huge boost.”

Resources for value prop design

Value proposition worksheet
Value Proposition Design book

• Update the call-to-action button so that it doesn't require mousing over it to see the text on the button.
  
  
• Add a live chat functionality.

Product pages

• Add more copy to each product page in the form of storytelling. Some product pages have a sentence but should have at least a paragraph. This is good practice for both SEO and conversions.

For example: on this product page on David's Teas for raspberry mojitos, the storytelling on the page is: "Is there any way to improve on fresh mint and tangy lime? Just add raspberries! Our juicy Raspberry Mojito iced tea is about to become your new go-to drink. It’s a bright pink tisane that’s fruity, minty and utterly refreshing. Served over ice with a splash of rum, this caffeine-free infusion tastes like a summer afternoon on a sunny Havana patio. In short, pure heaven."

Joanna Wiebe and Alaura Weaver share 11 storytelling elements:

A relatable protagonist/hero (your target customer)
A world (the emotional motivators)
A call to adventure (goal or problem to solve)
The stakes/refusal of the call (nightmare scenario)
A helper (your brand)
A magical item (your offer)
Crossing the first threshold (CTA)
The belly of the whale (onboarding/lead nurturing)
Road of trials (split-testing)
The happily ever after (future pacing)
The return (testimonials & brand advocacy)

• Gather and share more social proof in the form of product video reviews written reviews, and photos from customers.

More than 50% of shoppers say online video has helped them decide which brand or product to buy (Google).
67% of shoppers turn to video at least once before making a purchase (Moz).

• Consider offering free shipping on all products and just work shipping into product pricing. Once you offer free shipping, provide details about it immediately beneath the Add to Cart button.

In a survey by Walker Sands Communications, 90% of people said that having an order ship for free is the biggest incentive to add more to their cart, while another survey found up to 74% of shoppers will abandon their cart if delivery fees are too high. More on that here.

• Ensure that you don't display any products that are sold out unless customers can share their e-mail address to be notified when the item will be back in stock.

• Ensure all photographs of products are in high-resolution. According to Justuno, 93% of consumers consider visual content to be the key deciding factor in a purchasing decision. 
  
  
• Show all products in context through photographs. For example, show a dog sleeping in the dog bed instead of just showing the bed.

“About Us” page: 

• Talia Wolf shares 4 rules for creating a high-converting "About Us" page that I recommend double checking for your page:
• Make it about the customer
• Talk to your customer, not at them
• Tell the story
• Don’t just say it, show it

Social media

• If you haven't: create a unique hashtag and encourage customers to use it and tag your store on Instagram, etc.

SEO

• Ensure that your website meets the standards on Google Search Central.
• For on-page SEO, add original, creative content to your home page and product pages.
• For off-page SEO, get backlinks via partnerships, guest blogging, communities, social media.

Moz details Google SEO tips for 2021: 

• Favicon optimization
• Breadcrumb optimization
• Meta descriptions
• Numbers in titles
• <title> boilerplate
• FAQ and how-to schema
• Relaunch top content
• Increase internal linking
• Update old content with new links
• Remove unnecessary links
• Mobile link parity audit
• Invest in long-form content
• Use more headers
• Leverage topic clusters
• Bring content out of tabs
• Core Web Vitals
• Limit sitemaps to 10,000
• Leverage dynamic sitemaps
• Passive link acquisition
• Page-level link intersect
• Be the last click

Also, I shared 21 e-commerce trends for 2021 in the Shopify community in case you also want to check that out.

[Caric]

Hey thanks a million for all the useful info. I really do appreciate the help.

[Jeremy_Robinso1]

@ Caric

I'm sorry to be so blunt but no amount of website tweaking will help you build a scalable business around drop shipping - though there are plenty of Apps and drop-shipping "gurus" who will tell you (or more accurately, SELL you) otherwise.

All I did was left click "search google for image" on one of your dog beds to reveal the Ali-express listings and the dozens of other sites selling the same product, including Walmart.ca ($29.99). Unless you own the factory, there will always be someone else out there desperate enough to whittle away your remaining sliver of margin. 

If you're going to invest all the time and effort it takes to launch a business, you've got to focus creating a brand around an original product idea. That's how we did it with SoYoung - and THAT wasn't easy either. 

You can learn more about our struggle here