What would you do?

[Nick20000]

With a website that just does not seem to ever get any interest? I have run my store now for 1 and a half years and have not made any real money or sales. I have done so much work and never have any interested or success. I finally started my facebook page and have almost 500 likes and still nothing. I am seriously thinking about quitting as I am losing money and time. I am really burnt out. An ideas?

 

http://www.shopmost.co.uk

 

thank you.

[Paulito]

Hello

 

I do not know how you advertise your site or how much you spend but on looking at your Home Page I find it difficult to understand that I can shop for a DVD and also some spray to stop a Dog Barking.

 

Your products seem too diverse.

 

I can see that you have put a lot of time and effort into your site but I do not see any reason to buy anything, their are no loud in your face "Call to Actions"

 

I cannot see any "Free Delivery", "Buy 2 get 1 Free" "Get 10% off your first order" "Like us on Facebook for a 20% discount" "Join our DVD club and get X amount off" 

 

Personally I think your products are too disparate and perhaps you should try to keep things in a similar vein.

 

Paul

[Nick20000]

I was thinking of changing my website focused on one categories which is retro classic video games and accessories. I am just wondering how this would effect my store if I removed a many other categories and products.

[Paulito]

Hello

 

Afraid I'm not a SEO buff but this is probably where any problems may occur, if it was me I would ask google or you can check out the SEO forum

 

Paul

[razaro]

Really sorry to hear that an hope this new year would bring you lot more sales.

 

I remember you had similar topic some time ago and people pointed out your biggest problem - Amazon.

Do not want to get into more discussion about that but will try to give few advises, and that means bit more

work on store, sorry.

 

First, your website looks nice and clean, not have some big graphics and image backgrounds but I like it as it is.

It would be better if it theme is responsive as lot of traffic is done generally on mobiles and tablets.

But I think you need to bring out some important things in first plan, so customer would notice them. Like Paulito said 

 

 

 

I cannot see any "Free Delivery", "Buy 2 get 1 Free" "Get 10% off your first order" "Like us on Facebook for a 20% discount" "Join our DVD club and get X amount off" 

 

those things customer should notice straight away. But you have Hot list on side that is almost invisible. Content on homepage is good I think, maybe bit more info then needed but it is ok. You could try to add few more simple slides  on top slider with some of those things Paulito said, or add 2-3 small banners like: big red sale, win competition , tweet and get voucher and so on.

 

And when I mention win competition, that page should look more inviting some nice images like those banners you have, big call to action button , maybe some of previous winners reactions...

 

Next, your product pages, I clicked randomly on few and most of them do not get much info, some just image and product title which I think is not enough, not for customers and certainly not for Google. Also you could add some more social share buttons, not just FB. And small thing there also  those social icons on right maybe to have same links as ones in footer.

 

So some general tips for optimization check http://nemops.com/prestashop-google-rich-snippets/ should give some boost to SEO.

Also compress css and js files to speed up loading a bit. http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150107_G0_151N/

Some tips you can see here http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.shopmost.co.uk/JXhoqqEs few things like gzip and browser caching should be sorted. You do not need to get high score but 80 or something should be good.

 

Also check http://www.woorank.com/en/www/shopmost.co.uk that free report gives some points that could improve your SEO.

 

This could mean lot more work but did you consider maybe upgrading to 1.6 ? At least try it on local computer or hidden sub-domain (so it does not get indexed). 

 

Last thing, if you considering retro games only, could new domain and separate website be an option ? 

[Nick20000]

Hello

 

I do not know how you advertise your site or how much you spend but on looking at your Home Page I find it difficult to understand that I can shop for a DVD and also some spray to stop a Dog Barking.

 

Your products seem too diverse.

 

I can see that you have put a lot of time and effort into your site but I do not see any reason to buy anything, their are no loud in your face "Call to Actions"

 

I cannot see any "Free Delivery", "Buy 2 get 1 Free" "Get 10% off your first order" "Like us on Facebook for a 20% discount" "Join our DVD club and get X amount off" 

 

Personally I think your products are too disparate and perhaps you should try to keep things in a similar vein.

 

Paul

I was just thinking about what you said about "too diverse" but don't you think the main page should show off your different categories? I would think it makes sense to feature your main page as the base of all the products and show them off in graphics and banners. Wouldn't it be strange to just feature one categorie as you said "similar vein"? What would you do?

 

thank you. 

Edited January 9, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[Paulito]

Hello Nick

 

What I meant about "Too Diverse" was if you are selling DVDs then why would I want to buy some Dog Food.

 

I could imagine if my site was called, for example "Your Complete Night In" I could buy a DVD, Pizza, alcohol etc

 

It is just that, as you have already said, changing your focus to a Particular Niche would make it a lot easier to target that niche with Google etc

 

As you see with my site (see signature) that i am playing around with, their are many different products they all revolve around a Particular Niche. I have had many sales on this site but to all intents and purposes Google etc does not know about it,

 

Please, I want you to understand that I know how much time and effort you have spent on making your site and I also like the design of it.

 

Are you getting visitors? if so where are they coming from?  what pages are they landing on? what pages are they leaving from? How long do they stay on your site?

 

Paul

[Nick20000]

Hello Nick

 

What I meant about "Too Diverse" was if you are selling DVDs then why would I want to buy some Dog Food.

 

I could imagine if my site was called, for example "Your Complete Night In" I could buy a DVD, Pizza, alcohol etc

 

It is just that, as you have already said, changing your focus to a Particular Niche would make it a lot easier to target that niche with Google etc

 

As you see with my site (see signature) that i am playing around with, their are many different products they all revolve around a Particular Niche. I have had many sales on this site but to all intents and purposes Google etc does not know about it,

 

Please, I want you to understand that I know how much time and effort you have spent on making your site and I also like the design of it.

 

Are you getting visitors? if so where are they coming from?  what pages are they landing on? what pages are they leaving from? How long do they stay on your site?

 

Paul

But our store is called "ShopMost" of course meaning we sell "most" products that you could be looking to buy in one place. I not sure people understand the name and what it means. We don't just sell DVDs as everyone here seems that is the only thing we sell lol.

 

We are getting visitors but of course not enough. Visits are coming from our Facebook page, Pinterest, Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[Paulito]

Hello Nick

 

OK, I have to say that I did not realise that the "Most" in shopmost meant that you sell "most products" so, if your problem is lack of visitors then you are a member of the "website owners club" where virtually all members have the same problem.

 

A question:

 

What figures have you got regarding amount of visitors, where they come from, where they go, how many buy.

 

You say they are mainly from Google - Bing - Yahoo - Facebook etc

 

Do you Advertise on: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Local Media, Hospitals, Church halls, Business cards.

Do you have: Pens, Keyrings, T-Shirts with you name on

Are you mainly: Local, National or Internationl supplier

 

Paul

[rohitsh511]

Use Google adwords to bring real traffic to your website

 

website is good ,

[RobbieBlokeToys]

I think I have identified your biggest problem... Duplicate content.

 

I checked some of your product descriptions and they are the same as all the other retailers are using.

 

As a priority, you need to rewrite everything to be original and unique to your site. You will never get decent traffic from Google with the same text as potentially hundreds of other retailers who already have a brand, already get thousands of clicks a day, already have buyers and already have reviews on those products.

 

You have a nice site, with a lot of products, but all that is pointless unless you make your descriptions original and offer your customers more. You can compete with the big players, because they don't have evrything in the world, and they don't pay attention to everything either.

 

I know from experience that content is still vital, and it always will be. The most important thing for your business is the content you use for selling - whether that's text or images.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

Use Google adwords to bring real traffic to your website

 

website is good ,

I would entirely disagree with this.

 

Google AdWords is a massive waste of money, you cannot compete with the bottomless pockets of multi-million $ corporations.

[Nick20000]

I think I have identified your biggest problem... Duplicate content.

 

I checked some of your product descriptions and they are the same as all the other retailers are using.

 

As a priority, you need to rewrite everything to be original and unique to your site. You will never get decent traffic from Google with the same text as potentially hundreds of other retailers who already have a brand, already get thousands of clicks a day, already have buyers and already have reviews on those products.

 

You have a nice site, with a lot of products, but all that is pointless unless you make your descriptions original and offer your customers more. You can compete with the big players, because they don't have evrything in the world, and they don't pay attention to everything either.

 

I know from experience that content is still vital, and it always will be. The most important thing for your business is the content you use for selling - whether that's text or images.

I don't agree with you fully on this. If you look at even newer website like www.funstock.co.uk they have all the same descriptions as everyone else and they have lots of sales, lots of traffic, over 27000 followers on facebook.

 

Almost every website I look at that is doing well all have the same descriptions.

 

thank you.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[RobbieBlokeToys]

I don't agree with you fully on this. If you look at even newer website like www.funstock.co.uk they have all the same descriptions as everyone else and they have lots of sales, lots of traffic, over 27000 followers on facebook.

 

Almost every website I look at that is doing well all have the same descriptions.

 

thank you.

 

How do you know they have lots of sales or where their traffic comes from? The best converting trafic is Organic, but perhaps they have ads all over the net?

 

They could be losing money spending thousands a month on AdWords for those sales, making no profit at all. Easily done if you're backed by a larger company and expect to loose money for the first year while you focus on branding.

 

Anyone can buy followers on Facebook, and there's plenty of evidnece out there that even if you don't buy folowers the majority of those who do follow your brand will never see your content unless you pay through the nose to have it "promoted" - and even then you're promoting primarily to spammers who have no interest in your content or products and just clicked on your content to look more authentic as users.

 

I checked some of their descriptions, and plenty of them were unique, not found in Google on any other site. They're not just pasting in the same content as everyone else for absolutely everything.

 

Retron 5 - Unique

Atari Flashback 4 - Unique

Neo Geo X Gold - Unique

Sega ultimate Sonic - Unique

 

Perhaps they've added more unique content than their competition? Perhaps there's a level one needs to breach to be appreciated by Google as not being a spammer? Maybe they created the content for a lot of those products before anyone else? Perhaps they are providing those products to other retailers who are using their content?

 

Either way, the duplicate content all over your site will definitely be holding you back. Unless you're the first site Google crawls and sees that text, it will deem you to be copying the content of other sites.

Edited January 17, 2015 by RobbieBlokeToys (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

How do you know they have lots of sales or where their traffic comes from? The best converting trafic is Organic, but perhaps they have ads all over the net?

 

They could be losing money spending thousands a month on AdWords for those sales, making no profit at all. Easily done if you're backed by a larger company and expect to loose money for the first year while you focus on branding.

 

Anyone can buy followers on Facebook, and there's plenty of evidnece out there that even if you don't buy folowers the majority of those who do follow your brand will never see your content unless you pay through the nose to have it "promoted" - and even then you're promoting primarily to spammers who have no interest in your content or products and just clicked on your content to look more authentic as users.

 

I checked some of their descriptions, and plenty of them were unique, not found in Google on any other site. They're not just pasting in the same content as everyone else for absolutely everything.

 

Retron 5 - Unique

Atari Flashback 4 - Unique

Neo Geo X Gold - Unique

Sega ultimate Sonic - Unique

 

Perhaps they've added more unique content than their competition? Perhaps there's a level one needs to breach to be appreciated by Google as not being a spammer? Maybe they created the content for a lot of those products before anyone else? Perhaps they are providing those products to other retailers who are using their content?

 

Either way, the duplicate content all over your site will definitely be holding you back. Unless you're the first site Google crawls and sees that text, it will deem you to be copying the content of other sites.

Just an example here. I am ranking on the first page of google for this products just past this in - "Master System Portable LCD Handheld" not at the top but still on first page and all the content is taken from the manufacturer descriptions. I have many more products rankings on the first page.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[RobbieBlokeToys]

Just an example here. I am ranking on the first page of google for this products just past this in - "Master System Portable LCD Handheld" not at the top but still on first page and all the content is taken from the manufacturer descriptions. I have many more products rankings on the first page.

 

That's a very long-tail term, not something a lot of people would be searching for.

I would expect you to get first place for something with five words in the term, but that's not what people would be searching on. They would be more plausibly searching using  "handheld LCD" or "Portable LCD".

 

I can create a page targeting "large round hippo cup holders" and be ranking in first place within a week using copied content, but no one is searching for that.

 

You need to target more generic shorter search terms with higher traffic volumes, but then to be able to compete with the other retailers you're still going to have to have unique content.

[Nick20000]

That's a very long-tail term, not something a lot of people would be searching for.

I would expect you to get first place for something with five words in the term, but that's not what people would be searching on. They would be more plausibly searching using  "handheld LCD" or "Portable LCD".

 

I can create a page targeting "large round hippo cup holders" and be ranking in first place within a week using copied content, but no one is searching for that.

 

You need to target more generic shorter search terms with higher traffic volumes, but then to be able to compete with the other retailers you're still going to have to have unique content.

"pugsley ty" page 1 - 5 results down. I have sold a few of these.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[RobbieBlokeToys]

"pugsley ty" page 1 - 5 results down.

 

 

But your on-page description for that product is only being used by eight other sites in the entire world, and you're still in 5th even pasting in the first line of that description!

 

You're just not getting it. It's easier to rank well for a page that has so little competition when it comes to the content on it, but you should be ranking in first place for that term with a UNIQUE page.

 

Imagine how you might be killing it in Google if that product page actually had unique text, with correct spelling, and was supported by unique pages across the whole site...

 

If I'm honest, I would recommend you perhaps consider selling the site. Original content is key to running a retail business, unless you're relying on affiliates, wholesale, or you have a massive budget to spend on promotion completely ignoring Organic search.

[Nick20000]

But your on-page description for that product is only being used by eight other sites in the entire world, and you're still in 5th even pasting in the first line of that description!

 

You're just not getting it. It's easier to rank well for a page that has so little competition when it comes to the content on it, but you should be ranking in first place for that term with a UNIQUE page.

 

Imagine how you might be killing it in Google if that product page actually had unique text, with correct spelling, and was supported by unique pages across the whole site...

 

If I'm honest, I would recommend you perhaps consider selling the site. Original content is key to running a retail business, unless you're relying on affiliates, wholesale, or you have a massive budget to spend on promotion completely ignoring Organic search.

I was actually going to be quitting this website as I am completely burned out. This is why I don't want to add more work to this website. To be honest the traffic is rubbish. I have spent over a year with this website and never seen a decent profit or traffic. It is so much hard work.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[RobbieBlokeToys]

I was actually going to be quitting this website as I am completely burned out. This is why I don't want to add more work to this website. To be honest the traffic is rubbish. I have spent over a year with this website and never seen a decent profit or traffic. It is so much hard work.

I understand the frustration, it can be a real struggle to get a retail site off the ground. I started mine in 2009, and although it's always paid for itself (some months only just covered the hosting!) it's only now really starting to turn a profit.

 

I would say though, before you give up, try getting on Twitter and engaging people in conversation, start special offers, encourage followers to retweet and be engaged in a community of people interested in the majority of what you make the most money on (gaming perhaps?)

 

Just an hour or two a day might get you a lot of followers, and even if you sell the site in a couple of months you can ask for a little more with that following and that Twitter account for them to promote through.

 

Good luck with it though, whatever you decide to do with it.

[cille5]

Your website doesen't work.

[Nick20000]

Your website doesen't work.

...

Edited January 20, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

i have decided i am not closing it and hoping to take on board more of the advice on here and apply it to my website.

 

thank you.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

i have decided i am not closing it and hoping to take on board more of the advice on here and apply it to my website.

 

thank you.

 

I think that's a good idea. If you're willing to put the time and investment into it there's no reason you shouldn't be making money with that number of products.

 

Can I make some suggestions? I'll list what I would do as a matter of urgency...

 

1. Check your Google analytics to find the twenty most viewed product pages

 

2. Break this down to whether they landed there from search, or whether they looked for those items once on the site.

 

3. If they found them from search, see what else you can add to the page to make it more informative and give them reason to buy from you (discount for registered customers, more technical info, more compelling description etc...)

 

4. If they looked for the item once there, move it in the category to be more prominent and easy to find.

 

5. Find the ten items which give you the highest profit margin and promote the hell out of them. Prioritize the products able to bring in the most profit.

 

6. Start a blog. You have no idea the traffic a good blog can bring to a site. Not only can you give your customers more information and more reason to buy, you can bring in traffic interested in the FIELD of products rather than being limited to the product for sale. For example, you're limited to selling on a product page, but a blog post can be about people in the business, latest news about a product, upcoming product arrivals... this greatly widens your reach while targeting the right people interested in those products. Again, focus on the most profitable lines and you should see a good result within a few weeks.

 

7. Finally, really consider investing a little in original content. I would suggest a site like SalesCopySolutions they're affordable and can give totaly unique text for your pages for a low cost.

 

I hope these ideas help. Let us know how you get on!

[razaro]

i have decided i am not closing it and hoping to take on board more of the advice on here and apply it to my website.

 

thank you.

 

Yeah keep fighting and let me know if I can help with codding part.

[Nick20000]

I think that's a good idea. If you're willing to put the time and investment into it there's no reason you shouldn't be making money with that number of products.

 

Can I make some suggestions? I'll list what I would do as a matter of urgency...

 

1. Check your Google analytics to find the twenty most viewed product pages

 

2. Break this down to whether they landed there from search, or whether they looked for those items once on the site.

 

3. If they found them from search, see what else you can add to the page to make it more informative and give them reason to buy from you (discount for registered customers, more technical info, more compelling description etc...)

 

4. If they looked for the item once there, move it in the category to be more prominent and easy to find.

 

5. Find the ten items which give you the highest profit margin and promote the hell out of them. Prioritize the products able to bring in the most profit.

 

6. Start a blog. You have no idea the traffic a good blog can bring to a site. Not only can you give your customers more information and more reason to buy, you can bring in traffic interested in the FIELD of products rather than being limited to the product for sale. For example, you're limited to selling on a product page, but a blog post can be about people in the business, latest news about a product, upcoming product arrivals... this greatly widens your reach while targeting the right people interested in those products. Again, focus on the most profitable lines and you should see a good result within a few weeks.

 

7. Finally, really consider investing a little in original content. I would suggest a site like SalesCopySolutions they're affordable and can give totaly unique text for your pages for a low cost.

 

I hope these ideas help. Let us know how you get on!

hi.

 

I have starting the process of rewriting the product descriptions, myself. I will remove all the copy and pasted descriptions and replace them with my own. Good start would you say?

[RobbieBlokeToys]

hi.

 

I have starting the process of rewriting the product descriptions, myself. I will remove all the copy and pasted descriptions and replace them with my own. Good start would you say?

Absolutely the right thing to do.

 

A lot of people really don't understand what Google's ambition is, it has a stated goal to provide searchers with the most relevant content, and it's clearly stated since the very beginning that original content is absolutely key to the success of a site in the Google system. We might hate Google for the power and control it has over millions of people and their businesses, but there's no denying the one simple fact that we have no choice right now but to comply with the demands of the monopoly.

 

Obviously you don't hold stock yourself and I know it can be hard to know every detail about a product when the company supplying it is not so good at giving you what you need to sell it, but you should be able to gather useful information for every product from various other retailers out there and create pages that have as much useful information as possible. It really is true that if you have good images which show the product in the best way, combined with as much information as you can imagine a buyer needs, you will see an improvement in sales.

 

I would say that you should really focus on the top 20 products first though. Look through your sales reports and see what the most popular items are, look through the traffic on the site and see which items people look at the most, check the quality of the image and the information you have on those pages and do everything you can to make them absolutely perfect in every way. Once you maximise the appearance of the most popular items you should start to see an improvement pretty quickly.

Edited January 21, 2015 by RobbieBlokeToys (see edit history)

[J.Sahu]

I'll say that very nice site and a shop you can find your many needs. The sale depends on the people and price. Make an analysis of people visiting your website. If you can advertise more surely there will be a lot of sale. If people are getting stuff on less price then they will buy. Try to compare the price with other websites. Decrease your profit a bit so that people but some products and get familiar with your shop. 

 

You have done a lot of work on the shop and yes no hard work gets wasted. Wait for the right time and yes be competitive. Don't spend lots of time on your shop. Spend some time on market trends. The most important thing is advertising. try to write a blog with nice stuff and link your products to them. 

 

These are my suggestions. Hope that help. Good Luck ahead.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

If people are getting stuff on less price then they will buy. Try to compare the price with other websites. Decrease your profit a bit so that people but some products and get familiar with your shop. 

I'm afraid it's not as simple as just being the lowest priced in the market.

Perception is an important aspect of proper pricing. If you go too cheap and undercut everyone else, all you are likely to do is make people wonder why you are so cheap, and you're also encouraging a needless price war with your competitors which only serves to drive your own profits down in the long run.

 

Everything should be priced according to perceieved worth and value, along with considering the customer. If you're selling poor quality things in a discount shop, slash those prices however you like because the customer is expecting that - and will still complain when they get something of low quality. But if you're operating a business with uality products you shouldn't just assume that cheaper means more sales.

 

I have seen this myself. When I started out I priced things with such a small profit margin it was almost pointless, and I was almost giving products away in desperation to attract more repeat customers and get people looking for a bargain. I soon discovered that people were willing to pay a reasonable price for a quality product and service, and these people willing to pay a reasonable price are something like 10 times more likely to come back and buy again.

 

How many people who pay the absolute bare minimum will ever come back and buy again? I'm betting not many.

 

Find people willing to spend, and sell your products at the same price as all the others out there, while offering a little more - like a free gift, free delivery or outstanding customer service.

[domorodecmezilidmi]

I was actually going to be quitting this website as I am completely burned out. This is why I don't want to add more work to this website. To be honest the traffic is rubbish. I have spent over a year with this website and never seen a decent profit or traffic. It is so much hard work.

Hey man, don´t give up!!! Better try to be more active in advertising. Nobody is successful from the beginning. But if you work out your marketing plan then it is only matter of time when success comes.

Edited January 22, 2015 by domorodecmezilidmi (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

Lots of good advice here for me to take on board.

 

Love reading this and thank you for all the comments.

[Nick20000]

hi. just an update.

 

I had £75 of free bing ads and used all the budget and did not get a sign up or a sale. shocking!

 

thank you.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

hi. just an update.

 

I had £75 of free bing ads and used all the budget and did not get a sign up or a sale. shocking!

 

thank you.

I learned early on that Bing and Google ads are nothing but a waste of money, you cannot compete with the corporations with their bottomless pockets, there is no way this is useful to anyone unless you're in a local market offering something that a mega corp isn't advertising.

 

Stay away from both these ad methods, I have never heard of anyone actually making money by using them. Even if it is possible, you need to either spend six months learning every little tweak and option to maximise your chances (and who really has that time when you're running your own small business?!) or you need to risk spending more money on hiring someone else to manage it for you, and even then there is never any guarantee that they will get it right.

 

Go for the organic traffic and promote your business to audiences you know will be interested in your products, use Twitter to build a following (and those people will retweet you to their followers!) and make sure you have a newsletter option in place on the site to market directly to people you know are interested.

[ryant71]

I am just starting out with my business but having done a whole lot of research and spoke to a number of people they all said one thing, make it niche related.

 

Your store is very broad like everyone has said before me, you are basically competing with the likes of Amazon etc so if I were you I would think of something specific to sell and focus on that.

 

Other than that the site looks nice.

[Nick20000]

I am just starting out with my business but having done a whole lot of research and spoke to a number of people they all said one thing, make it niche related.

 

Your store is very broad like everyone has said before me, you are basically competing with the likes of Amazon etc so if I were you I would think of something specific to sell and focus on that.

 

Other than that the site looks nice.

I don't think that is entirely true. no matter what you sell, amazon seem to have it... it is not easy to find something that people want that amazon does not already stock. the way i see it the more different products you have the more chance you will have of getting sales, because not all amazon products are fully marketed and advertised.

Edited February 6, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[shri]

I would say SEO works for me. Use of proper keywords appearing in url,page content, Meta titles, headings, page titles will bring your site higher up in google search. It will need bit tweaking but you can see the site rising up in google search within few days. Offers discounts will make customers stay on your site longer. Your site looks good. I hope it does well.

[Nick20000]

Thought I would give an update.

 

I have now removed all the duplicate copy and pasted product descriptions and have written my own, which is a slow process but getting there slowly. Not seen much of a change in traffic and my Alexa ranking has gone from 3 million to 5 million, does not sound good, effects of the changes?

 

Here I am now, continuing to write products descriptions (3 to 5 a day). I just hope I will get some traffic soon and sales.

 

thank you.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

I'm confused.

You say you've removed all the duplicate content, but that you're working through your products 3 to 5 a day. So does this mean you've removed the content on a lot of pages and they're now blank?

That will explain your loss in traffic, some content is better than no content. Google has nothing to crawl but the core aspect of the pages. It would have been better to create a list of all your pages and then go through each one to rewrite the content over time.

 

Although there is no evience for it, I believe there are certain things Google looks for in ratios. For example, if you have 100 products and 60% of them are copy paste, it will harm the entirity of your site because your trust level is low. But, if you only have 20% of duplicate content the trust level is not going to be impacted as severely as it would have been by more of that duplicate content. Theoretically, your site should improve as the quality of content improves.

 

I would say, given the amount of content you have on the site with so many products, it's going to take a while to see any benefit, but you should stick at it.

 

It should also be mentioned that perhaps you need to consider what Google is looking for. For example, it can tell the difference between a blog and a shop, so what would they expect to see in a shop that they wouldn't expect to see on a blog? The answer is probably that they expect to see new products arriving regularly, products being updated, products going out of stock, customers leaving reviews of their purchases...

 

What kinds of things do other active and popular shops do every day that Google can see?

 

Freshness and regular changes are key to running an online shop. Even if you don't have enough sales to be logging in every day, you need to be there several times throughout the day updating products, moving new products to categories, refreshing the content, changing stock levels (if shown), checking product reviews and publishing them... Google needs to see that it's an active site and not just a hobby you set up and left.

 

Thanks for the update, I hope you start seeing results soon, and I think you will if you just keep rewriting that content and offer customers the information they need.

[Nick20000]

I'm confused.

You say you've removed all the duplicate content, but that you're working through your products 3 to 5 a day. So does this mean you've removed the content on a lot of pages and they're now blank?

That will explain your loss in traffic, some content is better than no content. Google has nothing to crawl but the core aspect of the pages. It would have been better to create a list of all your pages and then go through each one to rewrite the content over time.

 

Although there is no evience for it, I believe there are certain things Google looks for in ratios. For example, if you have 100 products and 60% of them are copy paste, it will harm the entirity of your site because your trust level is low. But, if you only have 20% of duplicate content the trust level is not going to be impacted as severely as it would have been by more of that duplicate content. Theoretically, your site should improve as the quality of content improves.

 

I would say, given the amount of content you have on the site with so many products, it's going to take a while to see any benefit, but you should stick at it.

 

It should also be mentioned that perhaps you need to consider what Google is looking for. For example, it can tell the difference between a blog and a shop, so what would they expect to see in a shop that they wouldn't expect to see on a blog? The answer is probably that they expect to see new products arriving regularly, products being updated, products going out of stock, customers leaving reviews of their purchases...

 

What kinds of things do other active and popular shops do every day that Google can see?

 

Freshness and regular changes are key to running an online shop. Even if you don't have enough sales to be logging in every day, you need to be there several times throughout the day updating products, moving new products to categories, refreshing the content, changing stock levels (if shown), checking product reviews and publishing them... Google needs to see that it's an active site and not just a hobby you set up and left.

 

Thanks for the update, I hope you start seeing results soon, and I think you will if you just keep rewriting that content and offer customers the information they need.

I have only finished around 100 products this far. It's very tedious, so I hope this will be worth it when I get more farther in.

 

I am will also be going through all my products and changing my prices to be a bit more competitive. I feel I have neglected this and have never gotten around to changes the prices as the products go down in price over time.

 

thank you.

[Guest]

Price is not everything - but a large part of it. The first three products I selected on your website were all substantially cheaper elsewhere. So why would I shop with you? What is your unique selling point?

 

Why would I risk buying from you (a start up) instead of Amazon or Ebay where I can see how trustworthy a seller is based on their feedback?

 

You have created a great looking site, but have not created a reason to shop there

 

Have you really got all that stock? Makes me dubious as a customer. All that stock and not many sales? For example can I really buy 500 NeoGeo X's from you? I could put that many in the cart

 

 

There are no easy answers I am afraid, and certainly no rights to any sales. Not digging at you, you have a lovely site, and fast, I think you really need to define what you are, why people should buy from you.

[Nick20000]

Just another quick update.

 

We have decided to go for one type of product and focus on video games / classic video games. We have been working on the main page and sorted out all the graphics and keeping a theme throughout. We have cleaned up the busy front page and minimised it. We have always been huge retro gaming fans and have been collecting through the years.

 

I think at the start of our website we had a vision to stock many categories and not something that we truly have love for. So now we have gone through and have changed to selling video games, mainly old classics and some new. This is a new start for ShopMost: Retro Video Game Marketplace.

 

I am still writing those descriptions and will be moving unwanted categories soon and replacing them with everything gaming and retro related.

 

Let me know what you think, thank you.

 

http://www.shopmost.co.uk

[Paulito]

Hello

 

Well done, a good idea to reduce the diversity of your categories/products that you were trying to sell. With a smaller niche market it will be a lot easier to concentrate on marketing these products.

 

So with a bit more spare time at hand you will be able to increase your social media and back links get more sales and be on your way to making a great success of your site.

 

Just wondered if you have had a look at "Fivesquid" or ""Fiverr"  their are some very good article writers on there.

 

Anyway, wish you all the best

 

Paul

[Nick20000]

Hello

 

Well done, a good idea to reduce the diversity of your categories/products that you were trying to sell. With a smaller niche market it will be a lot easier to concentrate on marketing these products.

 

So with a bit more spare time at hand you will be able to increase your social media and back links get more sales and be on your way to making a great success of your site.

 

Just wondered if you have had a look at "Fivesquid" or ""Fiverr"  their are some very good article writers on there.

 

Anyway, wish you all the best

 

Paul

Thanks for the heads up, Paul. I will check out Fiverr.

 

I still have lots to do in the coming days with the categories and then after that I will just be adding new stock, writing descriptions, back linking, advertising and more social media.

 

thank you.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[RobbieBlokeToys]

I do think you've made the right decision to scale back.

Just be mindful that if you remove those other items you will see another decline in traffic, so don't panic if you do that and then see another drop. Your traffic should climb up again when you start to really focus on the range of products you really have an interest in.

 

I'm not sure if you've done this already, but I would definitely recommend you start a blog for your shop too. I know from experience that those informative and interesting posts can get a lot more traffic than the product pages themselves. I would recommend installing Wordpress on a subdomain (blog.yourdomain.com) and then install MailPoet too, it's free and allows you to have 2000 subscribers before it's restricted, and by that time you will be making enough money from those subscribers to pay for it anyway.

 

I cannot stress enough the importance of having a newsletter for customers to join. They are people who already have a deep interest in your products and site, so instead of desperately trying to find them through social media (a post you put on FB or Twitter can be good for gaining general interest, but it's not always very targeted and relies on people discovering it) you have a captive audience built up over time, people you know for a fact have more interest in your products. I send out a newsletter once a week, and I can be guaranteed that there will be sales after it if it's presented correctly. Just make sure it's not all about selling and you have plenty of informative info in there that the customers will be interested in.

[Nick20000]

Just another update.

 

I have now transformed all my products over and kept a theme going throughout the website. I have to have lots of abandoned carts, what could this be caused by?

 

thank you.

[Paulito]

Hello Nick

 

I think their maybe too many answers to having too many abandoned carts, what IP addresses do they come from?

 

Paul

[RobbieBlokeToys]

Just another update.

I have to have lots of abandoned carts, what could this be caused by?

 

Does this mean you're seeing more customers getting to the cart? Have you seen a corresponding increase in sales to match it? If so that's already good news, now you just need to see if there are any issues preventing them from actually buying, and perhaps refine the process to encourage customers to continue.

 

You need to look at several things here.

 

First, are they actually registered customers?

If they have accounts, with an email address, don't be scared to send them a message to see if they experienced any problems while ordering. Make this personal, friendly, nice and polite. Don't make it sound like a form email or automated response for abandoned carts, people are on to that and they really don't like it. Be genuine and ask them if they would be willing to help you out as a small business and tell you if they had any problems, and that you obviously want to help them if possible.

 

Check the IP's

There are a lot of bots out there, and plenty of them load up a cart with stuff and then abandon it. This was all new to me too when I started, but I see it happen about once a day. It's usually everything on the main page going into the cart and resulting in an abandoned cart of hundreds of £'s. You should be able to put any IP into Google and get a good idea of whether it's a scammer, a bot, something suspicious etc. If nothing is coming up like that then chances are it was a genuine customer.

 

Test your cart on everything you can.

Go through the process a customer would go through on various divices and browsers, it might be something simple affecting only Mobile visitors, or people using IE, or something else you might then be able to look into fixing.

 

Trust.

Do you have everything there showing you are a business the customer can trust? Consider your payment method and whether that looks as secure as it should be. Do you have proper terms and conditions? Is your company information visible or easily found?

 

I just went through the process myself (so you'll have another abandoned cart from me, unfortunately) and I didn't see anything that I can imagine would cause any problems for customers. I tested it in Firefox, just so you know.

[Nick20000]

hi guys.

 

sadly most of the abandoned carts are from none-registered people. i can tell that the items have been searched for on my website then put in the cart, none of theme are on the front page and are deeper inside my categories.

 

i still have to finish off my terms and conditions. I will also be adding my ssl icons, social and payments icons on the main page.

 

thank you.

[Guest]

abandoned carts from non registered customers are very likely spider robots

[Nick20000]

not all. i have had some input my 10% off code and inside the cart then abandoned the cart.

[Nick20000]

hi.

 

just want to ask if there is anything else you guys recommend? do you think the website has improved alot?

 

thank you.

[Nick20000]

hi.

 

I feel my website just does not convert people. I must of tried so many different things and it has been 1 year and a half of nothing. What is left to do?

[Guest]

I think everything has already been said

 

I have had another look. A good looking site that works well. BUT i still would not buy from you. Sorry. I checked a few products and they were all over priced. Also your stock control is non existant. For example 

Crash Bandicoot: Fusion (Gameboy Advance) (Cart Only) (PAL)

 

I added 1000 to the shopping cart. Do you REALLY have that many for sale? I doubt it. That gives me no confidence in purchasing anything. Put proper stock control in

 

But at the end of the day, who is your target audience. Does any one really still want to buy this stuff.

 

You have to look at potential markets. And if the overall market for a product is very low, then all you can do is have a share of a very small market

 

Put "u-bolts" into google and you will find one of our websites top, or very nearly top. But the site will only get 4-10 orders a day Why? Because the market for U-bolts is small

[Nick20000]

I think everything has already been said

 

I have had another look. A good looking site that works well. BUT i still would not buy from you. Sorry. I checked a few products and they were all over priced. Also your stock control is non existant. For example 

Crash Bandicoot: Fusion (Gameboy Advance) (Cart Only) (PAL)

 

I added 1000 to the shopping cart. Do you REALLY have that many for sale? I doubt it. That gives me no confidence in purchasing anything. Put proper stock control in

 

But at the end of the day, who is your target audience. Does any one really still want to buy this stuff.

 

You have to look at potential markets. And if the overall market for a product is very low, then all you can do is have a share of a very small market

 

Put "u-bolts" into google and you will find one of our websites top, or very nearly top. But the site will only get 4-10 orders a day Why? Because the market for U-bolts is small

I would not agree that we are over-priced. Do you know anything about retro video games and them being complete and mint condition? Our prices are very competitive, have you even looked at other sites that sell only retro items? Some of these games are very rare and can never be over-priced, well worth the money.

 

there is a hugh market for retro games, consoles and accessories. Just makes me feel angry when people just mention price.

 

Our stock control is fine, but we think there is an error on the website as we do not have 1000 in stock.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

I added 1000 to the shopping cart. Do you REALLY have that many for sale? I doubt it. That gives me no confidence in purchasing anything. Put proper stock control in

 

But at the end of the day, who is your target audience. Does any one really still want to buy this stuff.

 

 

I have to disagree with these things.

First of all, who is going to be trying to buy 1000 of anything on there?

And what about someone using a drop shipping service? It's no less valid, but most of the time you don't have the option to use any stock management mechanism becasuse you don't hold the stock yourself.

 

Retro gaming is actually a pretty good market, if you know where to look and you know where to promote.

It could actually be pretty easy to get that traffic too, if you know how to market.

 

Ultimatetely I see several things wrong here:

 

1. There is still no content on a lot of products. Why would someone interested in buying something choose you to purchase from if you have nothing on the page about the product other than the images and the price?

 

2. You need more content to get that traffic. There are other people selling these things, people who have a blog, post on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter... You really (and I mean REALLY) need to get a basic blog started with some funny posts and some personality about RETRO GAMING. This would gain you a lot more traffic than your product pages and gives you more freedom to be funny, be you, be playful and build a following of people actually interested.

 

It really shouldn't be so hard to nail this and get a good share of the market, there are not a lot of retro gaming bloggers out there as far as I can see, and you're missing out on a good market form the Hipster movement - if you marketed it right, with irony and humor, you could cash in big by being a part of that community on social media.

 

Here's a goldmine idea for you (I'm into marketing, if you couldn't tell), start a series of posts on your blog about the characters from all those retro games - their personalities, their hobbies, their "life after gaming stardom". There is real comedy gold in this, and it will guarantee you shares, re-tweets, bloggers linking to you, as long as the post is funny, relevant and easy to share. Imagine the possibilities, how fun that could be, and how all those shares could then be generating you traffic to your shop...

 

Right now all you have is a shop with products in it and no personality or sense of community around it, the secret of making consistent sales is building a relationship with your audience and making you the person to go to, make your site the destination, not just another shop with no soul.

 

I really, sincerely, hope you don't give up on it. There is a hell of a lot of potential there, you just need to work smarter, not harder.

[Guest]

Hey mate, don't ask for opinions if you don't want them.

 

I am not trying to upset you. I went to your website and reported back what I found. I randomly clicked on a few items, googled them and found them cheaper elsewhere. I then tried to buy one and found stock control wrong. So as  a customer I would just move on

 

It seems to me you should be asking this "Huge" customer base in retro games why they are not buying your products as we can only really comment on technical aspects. Not why any particular customer will or will not buy your products.

 

YOU need to compare yourself to other retrogames sites, why do they sell and you not (For example the few I clicked on your website did not even have product descriptions, just a title. How would any one know that yours are "very rare and can never be over-priced, well worth the money"

 

Add much more product descriptions

Talk to people on retro games forums (add your website address to your signatures - ask THEM why they would not buy off you.

Sort out your stock control 

And price DOES matter. For example this gift, 

Official Pac-Man Pin Badges (Pack Of 6)

 

 

You sell for £6.99

 

A quick google shows it for £1.49

 

This

Vigilante 8 (Sega Dreamcast) (Complete) (PAL)

 

You sell for £14.99, a quick google shows it for £7.99 on ebay

 

Now they may or may not be as good quality as yours, but who would know? You do not have any descriptions, no indication of quality, if they are new or not, etc

[Guest]

I have to disagree with these things.

First of all, who is going to be trying to buy 1000 of anything on there?

And what about someone using a drop shipping service? It's no less valid, but most of the time you don't have the option to use any stock management mechanism becasuse you don't hold the stock yourself.

 

 

I agree, except I am talking about faith. If I can put 100 items in the cart then stock control is wrong. So I therefore would not have confidence to hand over money for even 1 as I could not be certain the next day I would not get an email saying it was out of stock. It is all about confidence in a site. As a consumer I would not buy when it was obvious there was no stock control. But perhaps that is just me, and retrogamers perhaps have more "trust" than I would have. Just my opinion, The OP is looking for reasons why there are no sales, for me that is one of the reasons I would not buy there. 

[Nick20000]

hi.

 

I appreciate everyone who has spent time here with those ideas and tips. I just want to say it just isn't working out for me and it has been too long since I opened the store to just keep on dragging along. I have now closed the website and I am moving on. I don't have anything left, this is so exhausting and I can't do it anymore.

 

thank you.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

hi.

 

I appreciate everyone who has spent time here with those ideas and tips. I just want to say it just isn't working out for me and it has been too long since I opened the store to just keep on dragging along. I have now closed the website and I am moving on. I don't have anything left, this is so exhausting and I can't do it anymore.

 

thank you.

 

You're welcome, and it is a shame to see you give up, there's a lot of potential there with a litle work and passion put in (and perhaps a clearer focus on the best products).

If you do try again in the future I would recommend limiting the product range so you can really focus on the best selling lines and market the cr*p out of them, and tap into that with social media and blogging.

 

Good luck with whatever you do in the future

[Nick20000]

I would just like to say we have not given up the website after all. I will be giving this another go. I have installed a word press blog.

 

thank you.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

What do you think of the blog so far. I have done my first post about the website. It is early stages but I will slowly make the blog a little better looking with the ShopMost logo to come

 

http://www.blog.shopmost.co.uk

Edited June 12, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[PrestaHeroes USA]

Hi Niick2000, You have made some very nice improvements since I last looked.  Good job!

 

what cms did you do blog in?

 

I'm no expert but if you made subfolder /blog/ of your main shop that might give you a bit of seo bump.  Content is king and adding new content is excellent idea.

[Paulito]

Hello nick20000

 

I am very happy that you are giving it another go but:

 

You have been given so much help and advice that you really ought to know what you need to do by now.

 

The forum is more about technical problems rather  than how your website looks or your content.

 

It's great to have a blog, but if nobody knows about it then it's not going to get you anywhere.

 

Their must be countless millions of blogs on the big WWW that nobody has ever seen or read, most people are not bothered about this as it is only fro friends, relatives or a chosen few.

 

You have to beat your drum, tell everybody about what you do and where to find your site, tell them why they should buy from you, tell them why you are better than everyone else, you need to keep visitors captivated whilst they are visiting your site so that they won't leave until they have bought something.

 

I know you have had good advice from the likes of robbiebloketoys, haylau and many others but the only way to get business is to shout from the highest hilltops that you are the best place to buy retro games.

 

The likes of you and me, what we sell, makes us a small fish in a big pond, but the module/theme sellers on the forum are big fish in a small pond, they have a captive audience and I am sure that none of these developers are millionaires. 

 

So, what to do, Get Yourself Known

 

Sorry to rant on

 

Paul

 

EDIT: and just to let you know, and you probably do, that you may have made a Prestashop record with the amount of views in the "Feed back On My Store" forum, so, as many people have said "Content And Feed Back Is King" 

Edited June 12, 2015 by Paulito (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

Thank you guys, very encouraging words.

[Motor Salvage]

hi.

 

I feel my website just does not convert people. I must of tried so many different things and it has been 1 year and a half of nothing. What is left to do?

Hello, your website seems pro and very easy 2 navigate, what i do is place adverts on key websites like ebay/ gumtree etc.. to drive people onto my site, dont offer no postage on ebay and make it awkward for people to buy throu ebay hence what drives them to my website, we've been banned many times off there, but after yrs of payin there ripoff fees and stupendous restrictions on sellers to favour buyers we now use them to promote the site and its workin great espeically when we stopped postin items, you maybe need to do something like this?

 

you have paypal so there is no worries about trust, we dont even use paypal!!!

 

I would also change ur mobile no to a landline, anyone who runs a business needs to have a landline

 

You dont need to offer free postage or special offers if your product is well priced and quality, but from what see your sellin run of the mile stuff which u can get from amazon or ebay very very cheap

 

check my website, www.bluechipspares.co.uk its noway as good as ur's but easily get 8000 hits a month and clear around £8-10k sales, thats frm  free or spendin around 20quid on ebay ads or advertizin throu other websites! no google ad words campaigns here and no free postage as we dont know no courier who works for free LOL is what we say to them askin  parts posted for free!

 

What ive noticed abt my site is that alot of people prefer just to view the products on site then call and make payment, mayb that might b due to value of the stock, but  see it as sort of part of the sellin process rather than a check out for all our sales dont give up your design is spot on

 

goodluck

Edited June 20, 2015 by Motor Salvage (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

Hello, your website seems pro and very easy 2 navigate, what i do is place adverts on key websites like ebay/ gumtree etc.. to drive people onto my site, dont offer no postage on ebay and make it awkward for people to buy throu ebay hence what drives them to my website, we've been banned many times off there, but after yrs of payin there ripoff fees and stupendous restrictions on sellers to favour buyers we now use them to promote the site and its workin great espeically when we stopped postin items, you maybe need to do something like this?

 

you have paypal so there is no worries about trust, we dont even use paypal!!!

 

I would also change ur mobile no to a landline, anyone who runs a business needs to have a landline

 

You dont need to offer free postage or special offers if your product is well priced and quality, but from what see your sellin run of the mile stuff which u can get from amazon or ebay very very cheap

 

check my website, www.bluechipspares.co.uk its noway as good as ur's but easily get 8000 hits a month and clear around £8-10k sales, thats frm  free or spendin around 20quid on ebay ads or advertizin throu other websites! no google ad words campaigns here and no free postage as we dont know no courier who works for free LOL is what we say to them askin  parts posted for free!

 

What ive noticed abt my site is that alot of people prefer just to view the products on site then call and make payment, mayb that might b due to value of the stock, but  see it as sort of part of the sellin process rather than a check out for all our sales dont give up your design is spot on

 

goodluck

Hi.

 

What advertising do you use on eBay? Classifieds or ad campaigns? I have tried both bing and adwords, both were rubbish.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Nick20000 (see edit history)

[Motor Salvage]

Hello, we just place normal buyit now or auction adverts then overprice  and dont offer no postage, similar to all the fee dodges who put wheel nut or engine/ light  bolt ads, but we are preared to pay the fees if something sells

 

you cant put website links on gumtree/ ebay or they'll ban you, (happened numerous times), so just put email address and company details and human instinct will always go to the place where you can get the same item cheaper!  Last 7weeks alone we sold over 4k worth of parts throu ebay ads and 2k throu gumtree, customers didnt follow throu with the transaction on ebay but throu my site, saved us near on 400quid in ebay fees!! We could of sold another 2k but them buyers didnt want to do transaction out of ebay and didnt want to collect so went elsewhere.

 

What you could do  is advertize them for 1/2 the usual price without postage, or overprice them like we do and  cheaper on your site, who on earth is going to drive to collect a dvd , same with driving to collect a whole frontend off a car,  99.9% of buyers want that posted which we do ONLY on our website or phone orders not ebay.

 

Its defo worth a try, your website is perfect, we'd wish we could have a site like yours, looks professional, its what alot of businesses cant do hence why they've got no choice but to pay the ripoff fees off amazon/ ebay fees, why the hell promote they're business when you can have your own site and can promote your own! Ebay and all the other sites out there have only but there own interests they aint bothered abt sellers, hence why you have to offer free postage/ cant leave negative feedback for buyers/r force you to run your business the way they want etc..., only last month they tried to force us to add the best offer or reduce our prices, why on earth would we want to reduce our prices for? its abusiness the items are priced for the price we want! Just like askint hem to reduce there fees!!!dont bother, just pay your listing fees in our case 35p a ad and use them like they use you!

 

if your relyin on ebay reputation (which still is one of caution among many online buyers)  for your sales your doing something wrong, people from our experience aint bothered abt feedback, more so the quality/ if the item is marketed honesty with plenty of info ant its true condition you should not have no issues there is no need for paypal rubbish protection, hence why we dont even use them!!!

 

We had ebay give us threats few months back that all our listings will be placed lower down on search results if we dont stop putting links or driving people off the site, only for them to realize the way we market and sell our parts compared to others it dont make a difference! Its come to a stage now were we actually buy items off ebay and double/ triple the price on our website with detailed descriptions! 

Edited June 23, 2015 by Motor Salvage (see edit history)

[Nick20000]

Hello, we just place normal buyit now or auction adverts then overprice  and dont offer no postage, similar to all the fee dodges who put wheel nut or engine/ light  bolt ads, but we are preared to pay the fees if something sells

 

you cant put website links on gumtree/ ebay or they'll ban you, (happened numerous times), so just put email address and company details and human instinct will always go to the place where you can get the same item cheaper!  Last 7weeks alone we sold over 4k worth of parts throu ebay ads and 2k throu gumtree, customers didnt follow throu with the transaction on ebay but throu my site, saved us near on 400quid in ebay fees!! We could of sold another 2k but them buyers didnt want to do transaction out of ebay and didnt want to collect so went elsewhere.

 

What you could do  is advertize them for 1/2 the usual price without postage, or overprice them like we do and  cheaper on your site, who on earth is going to drive to collect a dvd , same with driving to collect a whole frontend off a car,  99.9% of buyers want that posted which we do ONLY on our website or phone orders not ebay.

 

Its defo worth a try, your website is perfect, we'd wish we could have a site like yours, looks professional, its what alot of businesses cant do hence why they've got no choice but to pay the ripoff fees off amazon/ ebay fees, why the hell promote they're business when you can have your own site and can promote your own! Ebay and all the other sites out there have only but there own interests they aint bothered abt sellers, hence why you have to offer free postage/ cant leave negative feedback for buyers/r force you to run your business the way they want etc..., only last month they tried to force us to add the best offer or reduce our prices, why on earth would we want to reduce our prices for? its abusiness the items are priced for the price we want! Just like askint hem to reduce there fees!!!dont bother, just pay your listing fees in our case 35p a ad and use them like they use you!

 

if your relyin on ebay reputation (which still is one of caution among many online buyers)  for your sales your doing something wrong, people from our experience aint bothered abt feedback, more so the quality/ if the item is marketed honesty with plenty of info ant its true condition you should not have no issues there is no need for paypal rubbish protection, hence why we dont even use them!!!

 

We had ebay give us threats few months back that all our listings will be placed lower down on search results if we dont stop putting links or driving people off the site, only for them to realize the way we market and sell our parts compared to others it dont make a difference! Its come to a stage now were we actually buy items off ebay and double/ triple the price on our website with detailed descriptions! 

I'm not really a fan of eBay or using it for traffic. Any form of paid advertising seems like a waste of money for me, never had any success and i don't think it's that easy, anyway.