Help No sales on my store getting frustrated.

Shopify Discussion
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1

Hi. I’ve had my store about 6 months to a year already and threw over 5k into the store and have no sales.

I have redone SEO numerous times changed to a premium theme. I have done numerous email blast I post on social media 7 to 10 times a day on Facebook Instagram, Twitter, YouTube Pinterest TikTok. I opened a TikTok store. I’m on Google my business. I have run numerous targeted ads to the correct audiences. I get people to my store, but still no one is buying. I have pop-ups on my storage giving discounts. What am I doing wrong?

https://tinamariecreationsus.com/

any advise

2

How did you spend that 5k exactly? (for example, how much on ad spend, how much to pay your marketing person, did you hire a branding consultant, conversion rate optimization consultant, etc).

That would help out to give recommendations, experienced store owners can weigh in on your budget allocation and what works for them.

Some general ones after seeing your site:

  • There was a popup that came up almost immediately, set a delay on that. They annoy a lot of people, and asking for something (their email address) before they’ve had a chance to get to know if it’s worth it can be a turn off to your brand

  • Hire a designer to create a professional logo and icon. This is key not just for representing your brand, but also for remarketing and multiple touchpoints (lots of people need to interact with your brand at least a couple times before purchasing something, good branding and logo helps them connect and remember)

  • It’s great that you have an about page linked in the head, and even better an image, but to me your about page reads like a LinkedIn bio or job resume. I would write with the audience member in mind being your target customer. What will they want to connect with about you, what’s the story of your brand, how did you get started creating the things you sell on Tina Marie Creations, etc. I would make the photo more relevant as well, instead of a selfie in a neutral backdrop, consider having someone take a picture of you that ties in with the business, for example, if you’re an artist or create some of the things on your site, show a picture of you creating.

  • The branding indicates that a person, Tina Marie, creates things and sells them online. But the product catalogue to me looks like an everything-store dropshipping site. This makes for a confusing branding experience.

  • You said you’ve ran your store for “6 months to a year already”. There’s a big difference between 6 months and 1 year, especially with marketing, if you’re running marketing experiments on a channel and analyzing / modifying each month, that’s 6 extra months of experiments. Data and exactness make a difference when running an online business, I’d recommend organizing data exactly in a spreadsheet, this will help you make better business decisions.

  • Some other general recommendations: How to Figure Out Why You’re Not Getting Sales on Shopify (I wrote that, I’ve owned a store for 7 years, exited, now focus on apps and community)

Hope some of those tips help. It can be a long road to success, but in general if you experiment, analyze data, and have quality products that people want to buy, you give yourself a good chance of success.

3

To answer how i spent 5k

I redid my website 2 times - the first time I did it myself and it didn’t look professional so I hired and expert and he did a good job but then it still wasn’t making sales so another expert reached out and said it was missing key things and they would revise it with a premium theme and this would get me sales so the first time i spend about $200 on that and the second expert it was $500 because i had to pay $300 for the premium them and then 200 for him to fix the website.

email blast - 5 of them each to at least 1000+ people. (Each expert Charged about 100) so that’s 500 right there.
SMS blast.
SEO - Redid this 3 times each time was anywhere between 150 - 250 depending on the number of items i had.

Redid product optimization 2 times that 100-200 each time.
Social media marketing to Fb, IG, Tiktok, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and am posting video and images at least 7- 10 + times a day. - this is a subscription so i only have to sit one time and i can plan out the whole month that is 200 for the year.
Paid Ads on Fb, IG, tiktok, Pinterest - spend probably a good thousand on this. I had tiktok shop
im on Google. - Paid someone to set this up because they said it wasn’t set up properly. so that cost me money.

then paid someone a 100 to fix the robot because that wasn’t working

Then paid 2 people to fix the website because it became slow and wouldn’t load. so that was money

then i paid someone money to do product optimization and fix the keywords and meta tags and all that so that i would show up on google.

Plus then you got to include the platform fee for shopify monthly that is also in my 5k

Majority of these people i believe didnt do there job properly and i had to pay others to fix that again and again.

So yes i have spent a lot of moeny on this store with no sales still no matter how much i spend on email blasting and ads and social media posting.

and still nothing I hired so -called “Expert” who promised me that what they were doing was going to get me sales. AKA 6 months later after waiting for 6 months for sales and still nothing. Not one sale.

I wouldn’t even know how to delay the popup how to do this as I hired someone to set up the workflows and popups and I dont have her contact info as I was communicating with her via IG and now her profile is gone.

  • Hire a designer to create a professional logo and icon. - Paid someone to create that logo and icon and they said it was professional. But I guess it is not. Guess that will be more money out of my pocket.

  • The branding indicates that a person, Tina Marie, creates things and sells them online. - Yes there is some drop ship items because the items that I created on there which is shirts and phone accessories and towel and household items were note selling so one of the experts said put some drop shipping items on there and your store will grow and they told me clothes so I added drop shipping items of clothes and still people are not buying. They said everyone loves clothes so they will buy but I guess im in so much competition with like Macy’s and Amazon and Temu. Then why would they buy from me.

Honestly I’m so fed up and put myself in so much debt thinking I could get this to work that I threw so much more money into this store and haven’t made it back and all these “Experts” want is more money to throw into the store to do the same things over and over and over again. I feel i should just take it as the money invested and admit it was a fail and the store was a fail and even tho I tried my hardest its time to stop wasting money on a store that might never make sales because im in so much competition.

4

Clothing is a really competitive market, and margins can be challenging (I used to sell clothing + accessories, clothing helped us with traffic but the accessories were the money maker).

For the prices you’re mentioning, I don’t believe those people were experts. Here are some low cost ideas I would explore:

  1. Referral marketing. You get free traffic and a guaranteed positive ROI because you only pay on sales gained. Here’s a strategy I’ve employed successfully:

  • Create an affiliate program (I like Referral Candy and Refersion for Shopify stores)

  • Reach out to influencers in your niche that you think vibe with your products

  • Invite them to your program

  • Commissions I like tiers, for example 10% when you join the program, 15% after you reach 10 sales, etc.

  1. Experiment with pay per performance marketing. Example is Klickly. They make ads for you and drive traffic via their network, and you set the commission and pay only when sales are made.

  2. Google Shopping / Google Ads. These are typically the highest converting for paid traffic (compared to social media, for example, which is typically low). This will also show you evidence on whether your product and offer / website are appealing or not. If people don’t buy from Google Ads, it means the product, price, or website, doesn’t feel like a good value for them.

  3. Talk to your prospective customers. What do they want, what do they think about your website, what do they think about your prices, why wouldn’t they buy a certain item, etc. You can manually do this by polling people, or you can use an app like HotJar to have a poll widget on your site.

About mixing dropshipping products in with your other products, that’s a potential path. I have a friend who started a shop where he had a couple of his own branded products, and included dropshipped products to round out the catalogue, then as the business grew and he added products, he eventually eliminated all dropshipped products and sold only his branded items.

In your case, if your brand name is [person] Creations, I would focus on your creations and finding your audience, working towards finding “1000 true fans” (google that concept if you’re not familiar with it). Maybe you add a couple dropshipped products if they can accompany your own products, like accessories that pair well, but I would avoid having an “everything store” where you just list a bunch of products. Amazon already dominates that model and you won’t be able to compete with them.

The way you compete and be successful is build a legit brand, be different, make an emotional connection with your audience, show your personality in your brand (rather than general marketing speak like “we curate great products at a fair value, etc”), and find customers that vibe with your brand.

I know it’s frustrating. I’ve owned 4 Shopify stores in my career. 1 was successful, 1 generated a profit but was just ok, 2 failed. The successful one had excellent branding and well researched product market fit with products that we produced for our audience. Having a brand with a story helped us immensely with our marketing efforts, word of mouth, and people writing stories about us.

Another way to look at it: don’t think about building a business just to make money, build a business that you think is cool and gives value to people. If you start with focusing on providing value to people, then the money comes naturally.

5

About the logo, the thing that stands out most to me is the color palette doesn’t vibe well, and the US I don’t think is necessary or adds value to the brand, and there’s no icon (for example, look at the icon in your browser tab, it’s unrecognizable).

For a logo on a budget, I recommend 48 Hours Logo. I’ve used them for various projects in the past before I started working with a dedicated designer. The great thing about it is that you get submissions from various designers, and they design concepts for you, you just give ideas and feedback. Quite useful if you’re unsure what type of logo you want.

Good luck!

6

Could you give me your impression of my store. I am a recent widowed single mom who now needs brain surgery and this was supposed to help being in money during my post op healing

7

Could you please give me your opinion on my store. I started this to help bring him money so I can have brain surgery. I’m a recent little of mom now single of two boys and was diagnosed brain surgery so this was supposed to help us and so far nothing

https://pawsandpens.myshopify.com/

also my store helps or is supposed to Help a non profit

it hero’s provide grooming to rescues shelters fixed income homes like veterans and a pet supply closet