Why isn't my online business taking off?

Shopify Discussion
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Hi all,

I am having a lot of difficulty starting my online business, and am not sure where I am going wrong. My online business is essentially an online marketplace, where I design up my own custom product designs using 3D modelling software and sell these products by manufacturing and shipping to customers on demand. I also offer a service to my customers, where they are able to have their own custom product idea brought to life, by working alongside me in the design process. I currently do everything on my own such as all, product design, practically testing products, product listings (Take pictures of products, price products, etc), write up and design the website / online store, do all SEO, and do all advertising and graphic design for site. Since I am doing everything on my own, (and am not an expert in these fields), I believe that I am probably doing something incorrectly, or there is probably something that can be improved. I have listed below a few issues I have noticed with my business so far,

Issues

Very low traffic to site (Get traffic from social media but not much organic traffic)
No sales (0% conversion rate)

When observing these issues, I have the following thoughts based around why my business is failing, but am not sure which thoughts are correct and which ones are incorrect. Whenever I get very high traffic to my site, I still end up getting a 0% conversion rate, being a big issue. Below are my thoughts on why my business is failing.

Potential (suspected) problems causing issues

My product designs are bad (No one likes them)
My product pictures show product in “cheap” material, (since I can’t afford investing in the higher quality expensive materials)
My product page design is bad? (no one trusts the purchase, or page is too confusing)
No one trusts my business due to badly written and organised pages (e.g about page)
Website on google search has no site-links, and has no ratings/reviews (Don’t know how to get site-links and ratings/reviews to show up).

Please let me know what you believe the issue could be with my business. Are my product designs the problem? or is it just the website layout/design that is an issue. Do I need to invest in higher quality materials like (Antique silver) in order to get sales? or do I just need my traffic to be the the correct audience focused towards my products, and looking to purchase. I greatly appreciate the help and support.

Here is my websites URL for reference

https://nitridedesign.com/

Kind Regards
Nicolas Murdaca

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Hello @NiTride ,

Thanks for the well thought out post. It’s clear you’ve been working hard to understand the ins and outs of eCommerce and I believe you are off to a fantastic start.

I took a look at your website and the two things that stood out to me right away as “missing or unfinished elements” were branding and an obvious target audience.

I can see you’ve focused on a concise color scheme and a simple logo, but at first glance, I can’t tell what your product is, nor can I decipher which demographic or niche your products cater to. You want to think about who your customers are, what appeals to them and utilize that in your imagery, ads, social media post, etc.

With some tweaks, this wouldn’t be hard to nail. I suggest looking at some branding tools to help you fine tune what you already have going. Check out logo and branding design websites such as Looka, and this fantastic article about creating brand identity.

Additionally, consider changing your slogan from “Engineering and Innovation” to a short sentence that contains keywords and descriptors of what you offer.

I feel like your products would likely appeal to a specific niche, and I suggest exploring influencer marketing to increase traffic and sales.

"Influencer marketing is the fastest way to reach your target audience. It involves working with people who’ve built reputations around a specific niche. They create content for their channels, promote your brand, and, in return, you make more sales. Think of them like internet celebrities who double as brand ambassadors.

Nearly 80% of marketers find influencer marketing effective, which is why 75% of businesses surveyed by Influencer Marketing Hub have a dedicated influencer marketing budget in 2021."

Good influencer marketing channels include:

  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Snapchat

Find influencers to work with who would love your product and enjoy showcasing it within their networks.

I believe your products looks good and the high quality is obvious in the photographs. This is definitely more of a case of getting your product under the right eyes. If you haven’t already, make sure you’ve fully optimized your SEO.

Hope that helps! Let me know if I can clarify any of the above and I’m happy to answer any further questions.

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Hi Ren,

Thank you so much for providing me with this insight. I will need to work on the branding of my business as it isn’t obvious what I do. It is quite hard to figure out the branding on my business since I am focusing in the design, jewellery, and guitar pick sector as of now, but will do my research on how I will approach this.

In regards to my target audience, what exactly would that be and how exactly would I target them? So far I sell rings, guitar picks, and pendants, and offer my designing service to people who want their own custom product idea brought to life. Wouldn’t that mean my target audience is widely towards, guitarists, and also towards people who have an interest in rings and pendants? The target audience for my service seems quite obvious and knowing my target audience isn’t the issue, it is getting the target audiences that is the issue, and I am quite lost on how to achieve this.

I already use social media to advertise my products and service to my target audiences, but I never get much reach. You suggested I should attempt reaching out to influencers in order to get my products in front of my target audience. How would I find influencers who are open to offering promotional services, and how would I know who is the right person. Do I need to reach out to multiple different influencers in order to reach all of my target audience, e.g, find a guitarist influencer, and then find an influencer in the jewellery field as well? Also what should I look out for in order to know when someone is a scam, (fake following etc), so that I could avoid this as well.

Thank you so much for your generous support. I greatly appreciate it.

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Hi @NiTride ,

Thanks for the follow up questions! Keeping in mind that the following are all suggestions, I have some further thoughts on how to move forward.

For the time being, I believe it makes sense to focus on one specific group. From your description, it sounds like guitarist or simply, rock musicians in general would be the ideal focus. Your product caters to fashion forward musicians and guitarists who might enjoy having personalized picks. I believe guitar teachers may even be a niche you can tap into by advertising custom picks for their own business and branding.

Start fine tuning your pages and social media content by adding imagery that involves guitars and musical elements. Have you heard of Shopify Burst? This is a fantastic, free resource for searching and using high quality stock images in your shop. I would even consider creating a logo in the shape of a guitar pick.

Your target audience is the group of people identified as being likely customers, ie: guitarists, musicians, music teachers, etc. This is the demographic you want to keep in mind when designing web content, blogging, creating ads and social media posts. Are you tagging your Instagram posts appropriately to reach these types of users? Here’s a bit of reading on how hash-tagging works.

As for influencers, this again will stem from your target audience. I suggest you start following people who list themselves as musicians (perhaps ones that are local to you), music teachers and music stores. Read up on how to approach and contact them and make those connections! Here is a fantastic guide on this process.

I would personally find someone who has excelled at branding themselves or their business and offer to produce a custom, branded pick or ring for them, in exchange for a couple of posts and reels highlighting your website and products.

I believe seeing very strong evidence and proof of a large social media presence that spans across multiple platforms is a good indicator of a legitimate company or influencer.

I’m very happy to help, @NiTride ! I feel like you are so close to success with your venture and I absolutely love that you also take a custom approach to your products and designs. I believe nailing your branding is a big key to success. If you ever feel like you need a bit of extra help, consider hiring a designer or branding expert over at our Shopify Experts marketplace.

I’d love some progress updates if you ever want to drop in and let me know how things are going. Wishing you all the best!

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From SEO point of view, there is a bit of little content on the page. You can try to write more content.