A new Shopify store owner selling pet-themed print-on-demand merchandise seeks advice after achieving only 3 initial sales from friends/family despite 323 sessions since launching in early October. They’re running Pinterest and Meta ads but seeing no conversions beyond their personal network.
Key recommendations provided:
Store owner’s response:
After implementing suggestions (updated photos, ran targeted ads, refined social media), they report significant improvement: 5,000 sessions and 77 sales within 4 days of the discussion. Currently working on domain/email migration through GoDaddy (~$200 investment) and considering transition from Printify after gathering more sales analytics.
Ongoing debate:
Disagreement emerged about displaying physical business address—owner cites safety concerns about listing home address versus using live chat support as primary trust factor.
Hello everyone, I’ve recently started this Shopify journey and just looking for a little guidance on getting more sales. The sales we have gotten have been from friends and family so we’re assuming they’re just being nice and supportive. Wanted to get outside input on our store and get some tips on how to improve. Our store is https://paw-proud-shop.myshopify.com/
Thank you in advance for any critiques and help you guys are willing to give. God Bless
Hey @PawAndProudshop,
The requested changes requires to do the custom code in your theme file. Could you please share the store url and collab code with me so that I can take a look to the current analytics and share the best Audit for you.
Thanks
I mean I need to take a look to your store first then provide you the Audit.
Oh I thought I placed the url in the original post. https://paw-proud-shop.myshopify.com/ also I don’t what collab code you speak of lol, but I’ve had 3 sales so far all from people I know personally. 323 sessions and I started 10/8, all sales were on the first day and nothing since then. Currently running Pinterest ads and Meta ads
Have you tried implementing sales funnel
If you are looking for fluff bs that might get a couple sales but eventually fail, please skip this and listen to others. If you are looking for actual sustainability, here are a few key concepts that you need to change.
Thank you for your input. I have a few questions. Could you specify what do you mean by it’s copy and paste, isn’t that essentially what making a t-shirt is? Print your design and press it on the choosen merch? Would this new domain name link to my shopify store? Is the initial investment of buying press and materials, shipping, packaging and overhead worth not using the POD method until better analytics come in as far as what sells and how much so I could narrow down inventory needs so I don’t have a house full of unmoved product since I am just started and do not have a warehouse for inventory or would a storage unit work?
It’s could work actually
Thanks for the questions.
For the domain, it’s super easy and yes it re-directs. Shopify has a Settings section for domains that is really easy. Using a generic email is another reason people don’t buy. Together, a Shopify domain and Gmail is really what you want to steer clear from as a customer. There are so many scams today and Shopify has made it effortless to scam. You want to stand out, with your own brand, and yes you’re gonna have to spend some money to get there.
Inventory doesn’t really start to be an issue until you’re successful enough to get a commercial space. Starting out, you’ll probably want to skip having 20 colors and 30 sizes. Just the most common sizes, s-xl, and a few different colors. Not much at all. Besides, you can order blank shirts and they’ll arrive in a couple days, or just drive to Michaels or some other shop if you’re in a hurry.
Yes, investing in a press and doing you’re own shipping is definitely worth it. You can learn so much from the experience. Not only do you get a feel for the actual garment, and how the design looks and feels, but you are directly involved on a personal level with customers. What happens if your design doesn’t look good? Until you get an idea of what works and what doesn’t, you’ll either have disappointed customers or you’ll spend so much on samples that you might as well have bought an entire dtf printer. There is a whole world into dtf printing, and I can tell you that even the slightest error in your designs can make a customer return the shirt. The POD dropshippers literally just send your design to the printer and ship it out. If it comes out wrong, well the customer gets it anyway. Say you missed some of the background, or there is a slight color issue. You won’t know about it until it’s too late.
If you send your design to the printer I mentioned, you press the shirt and you can see for yourself. You can test different colors. You can test different placements. You have the control. With POD, you have zero control, only the headache of returns and dissatisfied customers.
Shipping is not a problem at all. For garments, you just put them in a poly mailer that cost about 4 cents. Plus, you can put thank you cards in the package. You can tag the clothes with your own branded Clothing line tag. A tagging gun is like 16 bucks.
When you created the products on the POD site, you used their generic mockup images, right? Where did the description come from? Images and descriptions are what your customers look at. Even the coolest custom design can be a flop because its images and description are from some other company that’s copied onto thousands of other sites. It’s not unique. Mockups can be a deterrent or appealing. POD mockups are so commonplace that they actually deter a customer from engaging. If you want to check out how to do your own images, I’d be happy to point you in the right direction.
I’m simply saying that the POD market has been flooded for years, and with easy and cheap in-home solutions there’s really no need for it. In fact, it’s actually much cheaper, not only for the customer (sorry but 30 bucks is just ridiculous), but for you. Every design needs to be tested and sampled.
Honesty. When you sign up for POD and you sync the products, did you stop and ask yourself, “Am I being honest to the potential customer with what I am doing?” Dropshipping is inherently dishonest. The customer thinks and expects that they are gettingbthe product from you. When they find out their shirt came from somewhere else and you actually don’t have a role in their order, they generally get upset. They expect the product to come from you. They expect that they will be dealing with you, not Printify. This concept is especially true with the non-POD dropshippers. The product likely comes from Alibaba, is marked up 1000% and the customer gets a cheap dollar toy for a Bass Pro price. Not good.
I have found out one element need to be optimized and to help you handle it practically, I have collected it below for your reference.
The store favicon is missing. You should add it from Shopify customization page and setting options. This is good for your store brand and indexing by Google to display in the search results.
Your store is warm and inviting and you clearly have a niche which is awesome. Build trust and build visibility. Include customer reviews, clear product descriptions and lifestyle shots. (Optimize SEO titles and run small MC or P campaigns targeted on pet-lovers). Think about bundles or first-order discounts to help increase conversions.
Hey @PawAndProudshop
I had a look at your store, and you’ve got a great niche. Pet owners are emotionally driven shoppers, so focusing on a clean, trustworthy experience and highlighting the emotional connection behind your products will go a long way.
One thing that stood out on your product pages is how far down the Add to Cart button appears. Right now, it’s buried after all the color variant images, which can easily cause drop-offs. You’ll want to make sure customers see that button above the fold, ideally right after the main image gallery and product details. Instead of showing every color variant at once, display only the image of the color a customer selects. It keeps the page cleaner, loads faster, and feels more professional.
Next, about your cart drawer, you’re already using a slide-out cart, which is great for user experience. But you can definitely take it up a notch. Try adding cross-sell suggestions inside the cart (for example, if someone adds a T-shirt, suggest a matching cap or hoodie). You can also include a progress bar showing how close a shopper is to unlocking free shipping, it’s a simple but powerful conversion booster.
I suggest not using multiple small apps for these features, consider simplifying with an all-in-one cart customization tool like iCart or similar options. Too many apps can slow down your site and affect performance, so consolidation is key.
Finally, since you’re still building your audience, make sure you’re giving some attention to SEO and content. Add keyword-rich product descriptions, unique meta titles, and engaging alt text for your images. Writing a few blog posts about pet care, tips for proud pet owners, or “gift ideas for dog lovers” can help drive organic traffic over time.
Basic dropshipping site with basic pictures. 100s of thousands of other sites just like yours.
I don’t see a lot of effort. That’s pretty standard for this type of site though. It’s the typical “sign up with a dropshipper and you’re done” website. No creativity. No originality.
Business information is not readily available to the customer. Contact page has nothing but a form. About Us page is full of rambling nonsense and no business info. Footer is missing it too. Did find the email address, though I don’t think you meant for it to be found. Chaoticjefe is not professional at all.
Prices are nuts. 65 dollars for a 15 dollar hoodie? 30 dollars for a 10 dollar shirt? You must be off your rocker with those prices.
In total, I think you did a very fine job of doing the bare minimum for a shopify store. You have a Shopify account, published a theme, signed up for some dropshipper, and synced some products.
Let’s address your tone first, clearly you have a personal issue against Dropshipping and POD. You might need to check your bias before attempting to “help” others.
I would love to know your definition of basic pictures, what do you expect to see models doing? Are you expecting a website to showcase models in space, curing cancer? Because none of the main photos on the site are basic mock ups from the supplier. All all designs are personally created by us and we willing to wager you cannot find another store with our designs since there is no originality.
Your ramble about business information not being readily available is illogical and clearly emotion based. Given the fact of there being a LIVE CHAT button on the site. So what business information would an actual customer require that a live chat wouldn’t resolve? There is no storefront so why would an address be posted, there is a live chat so why would a phone number or email be posted? The only people that would skip the contact form AND the live chat option are likely scammers and individuals attempting to sell the owner a service. Seeing how we are supposed to look at it from a customer POV. What business information is needed if I can chat LIVE with someone to handle any issue I have? You bring up an email that isn’t being shown but fail to mention the domain name when mentioning professionalism….both are being taken care of due to the “ACTUAL HELP” of earlier replies.
You clearly haven’t done market research and are forming an opinion based on your PERSONAL feelings instead of the eyes of the normal person. The average price of a hoodie in the US is between $50-$90 and t-shirts are around $25-$30, so instead of insulting by claiming someone must be off their rocker (which clearly shows your age) maybe go ask the younger crowd how much they’re paying for stuff these days.
In total, I think you did a very fine job of forming a poor and biased opinion. Haha see what I did there…so next time 
if you don’t have informed and practical suggestions like Howie above you did.
I changed the photos to what I believe are higher quality and showcase the products better. I have ordered samples of every piece we offer, just not every color and I myself am happy with how they came out along with the few people that have made purchased. So yes, I am willing to wait for analytics on what sells before I am willing to invest that much up front and dropping Printify. I am working on getting the domain and email from GoDaddy, but it’s like $200 which is still worth it.
Sometimes reality is harsh. Thousands of people just like you thought they can do it. You don’t have to look very far at all. Here are just a few posts just like yours. And they all have one thing in common: none of them exist after a couple years. Go ahead, waste your time. It doesn’t bother me. I’m simply telling the truth. So go on. Look around. These are your people. These are your examples. Click on their sites. Read the comments.
The reality is that we have received 5k sessions and 77 new sales within the 4 days since this was posted by actually applying the help of the people above you. Thanks but your “help” isn’t needed. You have clearly become bitter by your reality but there is still time for you to try again. 50% of businesses failing within the first 5 years is well known so posting others asking for help is supposed to prove what? That people are asking for help? You provided no informed suggestions so why are you here? To share your biased negativity on others? There’s a thing all constructive criticism, you might need to learn what that is before you attempt to help others. People who hide behind private accounts and spread negativity on community boards are trolls and should be treated as such. Perhaps show us all of your successful stores or the people you have helped…we’ll be waiting.
Come on you don’t gotta lie. And just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s not “constructive criticism”. He’s 100% right. You have no business name, address, phone number, or email anywhere. An ai chatbot popup app isn’t giving you points there. And i highly doubt you ordered samples and yet still have the graphic at the belly instead of where it’s supposed to be (3-4 inches from the neck). I think you’re full of sht actually to be honest. You’re just sour cause you were called out for lack of effort.
Constructive criticism is specific, actionable feedback intended to help someone improve, delivered in a positive and supportive way. It balances highlighting strengths with identifying areas for improvement, unlike destructive criticism which is purely negative.
Come on Howie, you actually helped. Don’t jump on the stupid train, the live chat is not an AI chat bot and OMAC Tech above can vouch for that seeing how they used it to contact me and offer some advice. What image is apparently on the belly? All the images were updated since we last spoke. Although you offered productive feedback, you have still not informed me what is the purpose of having the business address if there is no physical store, or having an email and number if there is a Live support feature available? What is the logic behind opening myself up to even more spam mail, calls and emails if I can just filter it through the site?
What’s the purpose of having your business information listed? Honesty, transparency, trustworthiness, etc. How’s a customer gonna trust you if you hide your identity? Anyone can do what you did. It’s nothing new, and it’s nothing special. What nakes you stand out is your authenticity. And hiding your real information is the opposite. Showing your address makes it apparent that you’re not hiding anything. It’s actually required that you are forthright with who you are in things like Google Shopping, Ads, and Merchant Center. This is very elementary stuff, but it’s important. It builds trust. If you search you’ll see a lot of ppl talk about Trust Signals. Your legit business info is a trust signal. Or a faje address, or an address in Mumbai claiming to be UK is bad trust signal. Kind of like the fake review blocks ppl put on their site that say 4.8 stars out of 27,000 reviews. No one believes that, and it’s the opposite of trust. You don’t need to put your apartment number. Hell a p.o. box would be better than nothing. The point is it’s a trust signal, and it would benefit you, not harm you. If you’re legit, you need to let the customer know that and see that in as many ways as possible. Judge.me is a good app. I like that. You want more of that. More authenticity and more transparency.
One final point. In anything you do, you need to ask yourself, “Would I buy this from an unknown website?”… would you just go to any website, and put your card information and hope you don’t get scammed? Would YOU trust someone who hides their identity. Most people would say no. Not just no but hel no… Just something to think about, putting yourself in their shoes.
