Website Sales Issue

MarkLP

MarkLP

MarkLP

Soldato
Joined
28 Sep 2004
Posts
3,128
Location
Devon, UK
Hi there,

Have recently had a new website made, which we are very pleased with.

The problem seems to be sales, we have only had a handful of website sales. (Phone + Email sales are awesome and on the rise)

I know some of you guys are bound to have some ideas.

We just really want to promote website sales, so anything you think that we could add or offer?

http://www.jappartsuk.com/store/

Regards,
Mark

Note: This isn't some plug for our website, so if anyone has a problem with this then I'll email the link to anyone who think they might be able to help. Thanks!
 
Sponsor some car forums?

SEO - inbound links, semantic markup, judicious keyword placement

Google Adwords

Make the checkout process as simple as possible

Have you got SSL on your checkout page? If not, that will make potential buyers nervous
 
Adz said:
Sponsor some car forums?

SEO - inbound links, semantic markup, judicious keyword placement

Google Adwords

Make the checkout process as simple as possible

Have you got SSL on your checkout page? If not, that will make potential buyers nervous
Click to expand...

We have the google Adwords currently processing.

Would you personally remove the "signup" function before buying then?

Will check on the SSL but more then likely :)
 
I have quite a few ideas why the site isn't selling much, but firstly, have you actually asked the company who developed the site to fix some of the glaring problems with it? Stuff like black text on dark backgrounds, product images bigger than the containers they're in etc...

One general point about the design in general is that it seems far too dark and hard to read, i'd consider making it black on white rather than white on black, make the text bigger and add some padding/line spacing.


Mick.
 
Suggestions:
  • The left hand nav needs some visual clues that it's a menu. I thought it was a list of links when I first saw it.
  • On your "sub-category" pages (e.g. Categories > Engine > Injectors ) consider changing "more details" to "List Products" or something.
  • Use a slightly off-white. Plain white gives me a headache.
  • Increase the line-height of your Paragraphs, makes it easier to read. (your main issues here are the "Online store" introduction paragraph, and the "Home" introduction paragraph.
  • You have missing spaces everywhere (e.g. "From£80.00 (+ 17.5% VAT)"
  • Your search seems to list categories not products, and these categories have cryptic names (for example I searched for "injector" and seem to get an inlet manifold for the first hit, however it was named "Nissan Skyline". Ok so it maybe a part for a Nissan Skyline, but what part?). Search is always a killer feature, and worth all the time you spend on it.

akakjs
 
just general issues as mentioned above. however I've seen a few mistakes with prices, eg. some stuff from £0 (+ 17.5%) which means the stuff is free! That just gives an impression of a poorly ran site/store/business. People expect as much from a web storefront as from a normal garage these days, so just spend time going through the website and fixing errors. Get a few people to go through and find errors that may have been missed. Does your website tracking stats tell you where people are getting through in the purchase process, I'm sure you can check that. People may get all the way to the purchase point and then stop as the process is flawed/tedious/whatever!
 
At work we carry out ongoing Search Engine Optimisation which works well - keeping clients up in the rankings, getting people who are actually searching Google for things you sell to visit your site. We spend a day or two every month just making sure their site is still performing well. There is so much to do with SEO, if you're going to take it seriously, you need to pay a company who know what they're doing to do it for you.

While your site is nice, as others have said, it doesn't *quite* have the professional look and feel that would give buyers confidence. Things like !Cars Currently Breaking! are a bit odd and ebay-seller-esque (tell the developers to add a sort order to the category navigation!), it would be better (and more professional) simply saying Currently Breaking Cars without wierd punctuation. In my opinion, the header and footer are great, but the left-hand column and the actual product information pages need working on.

Get Google Analytics and look at your "bounce rate" - thats the percentage of people who look at your site and "bounce" off, e.g., "Eugh, I'm not buying from them" and click the back button.

If you were to pay your developers/designers to make it look a little nicer, don't give them too much direction - always be willing to accept new ideas.

I've seen so many bad websites created because the client isn't willing to accept new ideas or deviate from the "vision" they have in their mind - almost always, that vision is a very bad vision. Web designers and developers are - unsuprisingly - better than anyone else (the client included) at designing and developing websites. So if you want a great looking website you need to just let them get on with it, and be completely open minded to their ideas ;) [/end mini rant] that wasn't directed at you, MarkLP! I just ended up ranting a bit :D
 
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